Missing in Kings
by Basil to Blithe
Summary: When Albus swishes when he should have flicked, he accidentally turns a tea cup into the secret keeper of young Harry's location. Steps are taken, missteps are made, and at least one life is turned upside down. -old wip, moderately disjointed
1. Chapter 1

**Missing in Kings**

* * *

Not for the first time that evening, Albus dearly wished to be somewhere, anywhere, else. "Minnie," he pleaded, watching the woman pace around his ruined office, "Minnie, please."

She hiccuped, favored him with a sour look, and called him a goat.

Albus gazed heavenward in despair. To his bitter disappointment, scones failed to rain from the ceiling. Although he did notice that Fawkes had finally worked up the courage to poke his head back in through one of the smaller holes in the stonework, where he looked on with trepidation. "Cowardly bird," thought Albus.

He heaved a sigh and contrived to find a middle ground between supportive and stern. "Minnie, Minerva. Please stop, this is . . ." he trailed off, trying to think of something diplomatic. She glared at him. "Isn't like you," he finished lamely.

Minerva appeared unmoved, and her bleary eyes looked first to him and then to his letter opener, which was currently buried to the hilt in a book case that wouldn't have looked out of place in a modern art exhibition. Seeing the meaningful glint, Albus headed off her train of thought hurriedly, "No, no, don't do that. Let it be, excellent. Now-" And there she went again. "Minnie."

The poor woman had reason to be upset, but he'd have preferred that she be more composed about it. So he'd swished when he should have flicked. He'd had a long day, who could blame a man for that?

"You smug, overconfident-" Present company exempted.

Albus bobbed up and down over his chair sourly, listening to Minerva's inspired dissertation on the virtues of aggressive contraception. Fine, he was willing to admit that he'd made a mistake. Maybe even a large one. These things happened sometimes, particularly when a man was trying to tie a rats nest of wards and tracking spells and one very, very temperamental relative of the Fidelus Charm into a hand mirror.

Unplottable Charms were not, strictly speaking, intended to be directed at people. At least not living people. And even if good sense were to be ignored, surely not at anyone the caster liked very much. There were essays on the subject.

Albus had reckoned that the warnings were largely overblown. The explosion from that particular spell going off had been directed at the ceiling. No great loss, it wasn't as if the castle couldn't do with a little remodeling. He'd even managed to salvage most of the roof afterward.

It really wasn't so bad as botched experiments in warding went. Even the most critical observer would have been forced to agree that there wasn't a single body hanging off the rafters- or from what rafters remained. There were no . . . Well, few scorch marks still in evidence, and nobody had been carted off to the Saint Mungoes ward for the incurably disfigured or anything similarly unpleasant.

There was only the small matter of the baby to smooth over.

Albus mulled over that thought and stared at Minerva's bottom as she stalked to the far corner of the room, having found a new point to rave about. Had she gained weight?

Damn Minerva's sweet tooth. He'd consult with the kitchen elves later.

Where was he? Yes! The baby. It was safe. Probably. Safe for a given value. Until the thing learned to walk and ask uncomfortable questions, even. Albus wished it luck and good fortune.

Goodness, could she ever rant when she put her mind to it. "Miss McGonagall!" he pushed into her mind at last, finally out of patience. Minerva stared back at him, momentarily shocked out of her tirade. Giving her a meaningful look, Albus made another attempt to move the conversation past childish name calling, "Sit down, my dear," he said aloud.

Minerva slumped in the chair across his desk. "You should have told me what you were after," she croaked.

"The result is rather more thorough than I'd intended," he admitted sheepishly.

"You turned a tea cup into a secret keeper," Minerva hissed.

Albus cringed. It didn't sound very good when she put it like that, did it?

He'd been aiming to enchant a hand mirror he'd fished out of a box of magical knickknacks earlier that week into a sort of all in one tracking system. Unhappily, he hadn't taken into account that he really should have been aiming at the frame, rather than the shiny, magically charged and above all, reflective, surface. The knot of spells he'd been trying to attach to it actually bounced off and sprayed all over his office. The results were proving to be educational.

His beard still tingled, and he was certain beards weren't supposed to do that. But there it was, tingling. Tingle. Tingle, tingle, tingle.

The mirror was in good condition; he'd find a use for it later. That much could not be said for most of his lunch. Worse, as Minnie was happy to remind him, his favorite cup —the one with the pretty yellow sparkles— was now lost to him. That several other objects dear to his heart, among them his prized animated rubber bath ducky, had disappeared as well . . . Was something he hoped she would never discover.

On the desk between them sat a fetching blue saucer with absolutely nothing atop it. A quietly insistent sort of nothing that made their eyes water when they looked too closely. This, they knew, was that tea cup. The universe disagreed. This difference in opinion would likely not be easy to resolve.

Albus made to prod it with a silver spoon, but paused with a pensive expression on his face. After a moment's thought he concluded that doing so was probably a bad idea. He did it anyway for the sake of satisfying his curiosity. The spoon looked a little worse for wear after he yanked it back out.

"Oh, bother," Albus murmured. He tapped the slightly warped spoon against his desktop, trying to determine what had happened to it. The spoony end didn't appear to be made of silver anymore. It was purple, for a start. Minerva sniffed disdainfully at his experiment.

"It will be alright, my dear," he said, examining the sizzling pit the purple bit of spoon had gouged into the wood.

"But we don't know where he is," she growled.

Albus watched her point sail past him with interest. "That is . . . Unfortunate, yes." He leaned back in his chair to work a crick in his neck, leaving the spoon embedded in the table, where it slowly turned completely black. His movement was made complicated by the fact that he was actually floating several inches above the seat cushion. "But I'm certain wherever we did place young Harry is quite safe. He'll turn up eventually," he said flippantly.

It occurred to him that he couldn't recall having any aptitude for blatantly defying gravity in the past, but since Minnie hadn't said anything, and because he'd much rather avoid setting her off on yet another topic, he let it go without comment.

"Fine, that's just perfect," Minerva huffed. She waved her hand to the hole in the wall where his window had vacated the castle in the general direction of Paris. "What do you propose we do when it's time for him to come to school and our owls can't find him? What if he never 'turns up' all by himself? What then?"

Albus smiled broadly. "We'll lie through our teeth, of course."

Minerva mustered a glare. "Honesty from you, Albus?"

"I do try not to make a habit of it."

She sat with him for a time and he floated in place, thinking about retiring someplace warm.

The former spoon dropped through the desk with a distinctly unspoony clank and began to melt a neat, not quite spoon shaped groove in the stone floor.

If, in the following years, it seemed to some that the Headmaster tended to flicker in and out of sight whenever lunch rolled around, and if tea sets were known to rattle whenever he looked at them, and if his stride had taken on something of a gliding quality since his youth, nobody cared to comment on it to his face. It was just one of those things.

* * *

Far away, in a place now thoroughly hidden from most magical eyes, a pair of very, very magical eyes opened in an unhappy baby's crib. They were green, and they belonged to a large brown duck. It looked around a dark room in a suburban home and bowed its head.

"Quack." It snuffled miserably, then heaved a great, unducky sigh. "Just . . . Quack."

The baby under the duck wailed.

"Shut up, Harry," said the duck, and it sat on his head.

Harry quieted and scrunched his nose at the feathers blocking his view. The duck warbled at him briefly, then hopped out of the crib with a flutter of its wings. It looked around with a critical eye.

"Bloody quacking hell," it said, staring up at a framed photo of one Petunia now-Dursley holding aloft her son.

Footsteps thudded in the hallway, and the duck waddled up the wall to stand on the ceiling, where it warbled darkly to itself.

Petunia peeked into the room and glared at Harry before closing the door with a loud slam.

Harry tried again.

This time, the duck fluttered down and pecked him on his forehead.

"Quiet," it said, "mummy's thinking."

* * *

This is an old project of mine that is really only half done, but I'd like to see it in chaptered form so here it is. The full story is roughly forty four thousand words at this point, and I intend to upload the first twenty five or so and do some more work from there. I do hope you enjoy, cheers!


	2. Chapter 2

Severus stalked out of his personal laboratory into an unremarkable dungeon hall, snapping his robes about him on his way to . . . This was going entirely too well, what was was he forgetting?

He paused in mid step halfway around a corner, looking ridiculous from all angles.

"Wait a tick," he thought.

His brow creased, and he planted his foot firmly on the ground. Satisfied that he looked properly driven and imposing, he glared at nothing in particular until his eyes narrowed in realization.

Oh, bother. The cakes!

Severus spun on one heel and dashed back into his laboratory, noting in passing that he hadn't locked the door. The staff had been absolutely insufferable when they first learned of his love for authentic home made cauldron cakes. It was best they not be reminded of it.

The students would be horrified to learn the man they so dearly loved to hate could cook, as well. Or worse, that he could be moved to happiness by something as mundanely human as food. They would actually have something in common!

He shuddered at the thought and carefully snuffed the burner that threatened to turn his treat to coal. An even more horrifying notion struck him as he did: If the students took it into their empty little heads that potion making was anything at all like cooking, why, the results could prove even more disastrous than their usual efforts. Cleaning foaming gunk from the floor or whipping up a few boil reducing potions? That was simply a part of the job, all in a day's work.

But scraping desiccated, exploded, or burnt student flesh off the classroom walls? No, thank you. Best the incompetents remain terrified of the subject and refrain from experimentation. He could think of at least three ways even a first year student could kill themselves in any given lesson of the year. Sometimes more. True, if it might take a potions master or a terribly hungry blind man to get such a result out of their standard ingredients intentionally, but stupidity and ignorance could go a long way.

That was, after all, how he'd concocted Wolf's Bane in the first place. Let us drop some hellebore and a handful of saltpeter in the pot and see what happens, shall we? It was a wonder he'd survived. A lucrative wonder, thankfully. He'd melted three gold cauldrons that day, to say nothing of the condition of his room, the grounds, and the local water table. The water in that area still tasted vaguely of cinnamon to this day.

After checking once more to be absolutely certain that nothing would explode while he was away, he locked the door behind him, warded it securely, and set off for the great hall at a more sedate pace.

He was in good spirits. His projects, the cauldron cakes currently chief among them, were progressing steadily. The student body had been sufficiently cowed in the first weeks of the year that most classes managed to get through a day or two of productive work before someone would end up screaming in agony, covered in unattractive spots, or some combination of the two. Even with the added aggravation of various members of the Order scurrying through the halls on diverse errands of late, he found it necessary to make a conscious effort to appear suitably dour and menacing. It wouldn't do to terrify some random unfortunate by smiling at them in a moment of weakness.

The last poor soul he'd inflicted a toothy grin upon, a painfully thin little Hufflepuff girl who insisted on trying to starve herself pretty, had spent the remainder of her days at Hogwarts desperately checking her food for poison. If she had payed any attention to the work in his lessons she might have discovered that the cause of her sudden growth spurt was actually a concentrated nutrient potion he'd ordered the house elves to lace her salad dressing with. She'd proved to be a fantastic student once she had enough energy to think straight, and actually graduated with honors in transfiguration. Her potions grade hardly bore mention, but that her morbid fear of him could motivate her so strongly was heartening.

Even more amusing, the poor girl found herself dragged right on back the very next year at the request of the Headmaster and Chief of the Wizengamot to participate in a special project. A delicate and most secret one, which required her to imbibe a great deal of Severus' potions on a regular basis. He made a show of resenting the extra work and entertained himself by making the occasional snide comment to her about the medicinal applications of puppies when he delivered them to the medical wing.

He did so enjoy committing random acts of good will. The confusion and fear on the faces of his victims was always worth the effort. Albus liked to say that it was a sign that he had a good heart. Severus held a different opinion on the matter.

Strolling into the Great Hall he was forced to stop before a pair of fledglings. Martin something or other from the Daily Prophet and a haggard looking young woman he couldn't put a name to both seemed intent on blocking his route while they chatted. He favored them both with a paint stripping glare.

"Good morning," he said silkily.

The reporter slammed himself against the wall in his haste to move out of the way. "S-s-sorry s-s-sir!" he stuttered. The woman just backed up mutely, pale as a sheet.

Smirking all the way, Severus found his usual place at the head table. He was the first staff member to arrive. With the school in session Madame Pomfrey, ( Poppy to her friends, she insisted constantly. At this point Severus was refusing to use her first name simply to be contrary. ) would usually be found on his right, but today it seemed he didn't have any competition for the nearest coffee pot. He plundered it greedily and tucked in to a full English breakfast.

It would be a good day.

"Ah, Severus, my boy!" Albus greeted him gaily, floating into the hall from the direction of the infirmary and moving over the Ravenclaw table.

Severus cringed. It would be a good day, he resolved; even if he had to kill everyone in the castle to have it. He chewed his toast resolutely.

From the corner of his eye he could see the old man was, in his characteristic defiance of good sense, costumed as the seldom mentioned Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: Fashion. Professor Dumbledore was a disaster dressed in red tights and a yellow sport jacket wrapped in a purple bath robe. Knowing him, he probably had on a pair of orange slippers with tassels at the heels dragging on the floor unseen.

That he was also flying was hardly worth noting, now. One day Albus blew the roof off his office and just started hovering everywhere, claiming on occasion that walking took too much effort. The impression this left on some of the more reluctant of Severus' retired colleagues was striking.

"Poppy and I were hoping we might benefit from your expertise," Albus continued, setting down to hover beside him.

Severus glanced down. He was correct. Orange tassels splayed out from Albus' slippers in all their glory.

"It seems that mister Potter has suffered an accident," Albus murmured quietly.

Death to- What? This was excellent news. Severus let himself revel in a bubbling feeling of joy.

Albus took in Severus' beatific expression with a disapproving frown. "The other one, my boy," he said. Severus looked through him. "Finish your coffee," Albus sighed.

Severus sipped his coffee blissfully. A few gears started churning in his head once he could see the bottom of his mug. Oh shit. Potter was already dead, wasn't he?

"What's wrong with the other one?" he asked faintly, finally noticing the signs of tension in Albus' frame. Not many could tell when the man was upset, but he could. And Albus looked most unhappy.

Damn. Another day to the dogs. Severus stood, briefly mourned his breakfast, and began to walk briskly to the infirmary. "What are you waiting for, Albus?"

* * *

Severus walked into the infirmary with a lurching, not at all graceful gait. He sneered in passing at a child who was plainly considering the best excuse to get out of class that morning. The brat paled and rushed off to breakfast instead.

"What," he asked of Albus, "exactly is the problem?"

"Poppy has a better understanding of it, but it seems Harry has forgotten his old form."

"So the potions worked."

Albus floated at his side and shrugged miserably. "They worked perhaps a little too well."

The private ward was in sight, and Severus stopped in his tracks to look at Albus squarely. "You asked me to make it easier for him to stabilize himself. I did it."

Albus fidgeted. "In retrospect it might have been a mistake to use the signature of one so young."

"What do you mean, young? You told me it was current."

"As current as possible under the circumstances." Albus smiled wanly and shrugged.

Severus glared at him in fury. "I'm not going to ask, old man, but you'd better get me a current sample, or this is going to the dogs. I told you-"

Albus held up a hand. "I know, my boy. And I have the utmost faith in your efforts from here out."

"That's not what I meant!"

"Fix it, Severus."

"I'll try," he ground out.

"Excellent!" Albus beamed at him. Insufferable man.

* * *

Honestly, as current as was possible? Whatever that meant spelled bad news for his cauldron cakes.

Severus huffed and made his way into the private ward, mentally parting the veil that kept it looking orderly and clean to untrained eyes.

It was a disaster. Where once gleamed magical instruments was now a makeshift potions lab, all arrayed in a manner he only barely approved of as a professional. An orange flame burned brightly under a dish of quicksilver, the fumes of which were whisked away into a cauldron that bubbled a dangerous murky yellow. Instantly he grabbed his wand and whisked it once, twice, thrice and a quarter. It subsided and bubbled thickly.

Poppy scurried past him with a small cauldron, still streaming purple smoke, a potion of his own devising intended to keep young Harry on his feet.

He searched for a dish of sulfur, found it, and added a pinch.

"Poppy," he said, forgetting his private promise.

"Just stay out of my way and watch, Severus," she snapped.

Right, so Poppy wasn't in a good mood today.

He stood silently and watched her stir the cauldron at the bedside of a figure draped in a sheet. This, most likely, was one Harry Potter.

She removed the sheet.

It was not Harry Potter. In Harry Potter's place was a pallid lump of flesh with a gaping red hole for a mouth.

Severus retched. The sight actually made him physically ill. He stirred the cauldron he'd taken over hurriedly.

He watched with some trepidation as Poppy used a ladle to pour the potion down the hole, where it presumably disappeared into whatever passed for its throat.

After three ladles full the things features twisted, and it turned a shade of pink. A recognizable nose popped out, and the hole became a gash. His potion was not supposed to do that.

"What?" He was at a loss for words.

"Albus didn't tell you, did he?" Poppy said bitterly. "That signature he gave you? It was from Harry when he was a baby."

Severus felt his gorge rise. "Please tell me Harry is alive."

"The real one? Maybe. This one? Not for long if he isn't."

Severus cringed. This wasn't a good day.

* * *

The first time Fame knocked on Harry's door, it was surprised to discover that he wasn't at home. Fame was a bit put out by this, and so it had a comfort cup with Fortune at a nearby chocolate shop and sent word that they weren't going to bloody well wait around for some brat with a silly surname when a replacement would do just as well.

There was no replacement. They waited.

Some years later, Fame knocked again, a little more insistently this time. Still no Harry.

Well, well. That wouldn't do at all, would it? Arrangements were made.

In truth, there was no capital-letter fame or fortune, the world managed well enough without, but there was one Albus Percival Wulfric etcetera and so forth, along with all of his loyal lads and lasses.

And then there was a blessing in the form of one Nymphadora Tonks. Metamorphmagi were vanishingly rare, but there she, it, was. In blatant defiance of expectation she was even in the right place at roughly the right time. Truly a wonder of coincidence, that.

Albus congratulated himself regularly for the part he'd had in her parent's marriage. Two love potions and a month casting confounding charms and the occasional illegal curse through a window was a small price to pay for their slightly stunned but generally sunny dispositions. His peace of mind was a happy bonus.

Ultimately, however, he knew that the metamorph was only a temporary solution at best. Even with Severus and Poppy dosing the girl with very experimental magical signature altering and strength enhancing potions, she wasn't the real thing. That had never been more obvious than it was now.

He stood solemnly as Poppy and Severus consulted with one another beside the still, pallid form of one Harry Potter, holding their wands at the ready. His cheeks were sunken, and his lips held a blue tinge. An improvement from his previous state, but not quite what he'd hoped for.

This was Nymphadora Tonks as she, or he, had been for a month.

The boys features began to twist, and both Poppy and Severus began to cast in quick succession, hoping to prevent what was coming.

If their spells had any effect, Albus couldn't tell. He ached to help, but this was far outside his own realm of expertise.

He stood by and expanded the silencing ward with a wave of his hand so that he, too, could hear the guttural screams of a girl who had been tasked with the impossible, as her body bubbled and cracked, trying to return to a form it had forgotten.


	3. Chapter 3

She dreamt of sweet things.

Whirling ash washed over her skin, blurring her vision even at a squint. Through the haze a dull orange glow cast a maze of shadows between scattered branches and blasted trunks. Their leaves were crisped and curled where they hadn't been stripped away.

Tiny motes of impossible flame danced in ragged formation overhead, wreathing the trees in light without ever quite touching. Columns of smoke rose at odd angles from roots burning below the earth, and clouds of dust raced between them, catching solid chunks of soot and sending them tumbling to the forest floor or bounding into the sky.

She stumbled, trying to ignore the pain in her gut. The scent of blood, bowel and charred flesh teased her nose and clung to her tongue. Her throat convulsed and she staggered, swaying drunkenly. The lance of pain that followed drove her to her knees. Fresh tears clouded her eyes as the blood she'd swallowed clawed it's way from her stomach to dribble past her split lips, turning the carpet of ash at her feet to mud. Too much blood to be real. Far too much.

When at last she could breathe again she all but collapsed, gasping as much out of pain as for air. It was all she could do to hold back a sob. She needed to continue.

Her fingers sank into the spreading muck as she pushed herself back into a crouch.

Ahead of her, she saw her goal.

The figure lay draped over the fork of a split and limbless tree, looking like nothing so much as a red on white rag doll that had been pierced and discarded. Nameless organs reached toward the sky in a frozen fall. Impossible, like everything else.

She stepped close, peering at the body. She had to see.

It had no face. It was her, but it-

Then she was the one below, and the child loomed over her.

She could only watch mutely as he reached into her gut and pulled.

* * *

"We're losing him, Albus," said Severus over a cup of coffee in his renovated tower office.

"I know."

"And you don't much care, do you."

Albus gave him a pained smile. "I care like any shepherd cares for his flock, Severus. You know that."

Severus glared at him momentarily before leaning back in the too-plush chair he always favored in Albus' office. "Without the real thing I can't make a potion to stabilize his form."

"The real thing has proved rather difficult to come by, my boy."

"Yes, thank you, I know. I watched Flitwick's last scrying session. Did you know he wears a toupe?"

Albus blinked slowly. "That I did not."

"Well, he does. And I think he looks better without it."

Severus reached out blindly for his cup, and on a whim, Albus decided to play a little trick on him. He levitated the saucer and cup up and away, and replaced it with an empty one from his shelf.

Only after Severus froze in his seat and turned florescent purple did Albus realize that this particular saucer wasn't empty. And then he remembered something very important.

* * *

Severus woke to the sight of Flitwick levitating over his hospital bed, tickling the sole of his bare foot with a feather.

He marveled at the absurdity of the situation and cleared his throat. Something thick dislodged itself and he dissolved into a coughing fit.

"Ahah!" Flitwick abandoned his feather on the bedspread and scrambled to cast a diagnostic spell, marveling at the results as he spoke. "You're finally awake! This was most fortuitous, you know. As it turns out, the spell matrices that could survive in a cup of tea could not, in fact, survive in a wizard's body! Your magic filtered most of them right out. It's a marvel," Flitwick squeaked excitedly, "an absolute marvel!"

Severus narrowed his eyes at the man. "How long was I out?" he croaked. He felt awful.

"A mere three weeks. Three weeks to do what myself and the headmaster could not accomplish in years of study and experimentation! An accident to solve an accident, amazing."

Severus wasn't listening.

"Why, if I'd known that a wizard's magical core could accomplish such a feat so easily. . . The things we can do with this knowledge!"

His cauldron cakes were ruined.

When Poppy walked into her ward to see a miraculously recovered Severus choking the life out of a weakly protesting Flitwick, she waited just a little longer than she might otherwise have to rescue the man. She'd made the mistake of requesting his help in treating Severus the minute she'd understood what had happened, and he hadn't shut up since.

* * *

It took six weeks before the Wizarding Press realized that they hadn't had the chance to shear their favorite lamb in quite some time. A week more and they started to get creative.

Albus puffed out his cheeks and swished thrice, before spitting out a mouthful of gargling salt at his reflection, where it splattered pleasingly before being sucked down his sink's drain. The media frenzy was getting to be a bother.

To date, the owlry proved to be of no great help. Every time the post owls were dispatched in search of Harry-emphasis-Potter, they departed in different directions, stayed away for different lengths of time, and ended up pecking at Albus' office window until he let them in. There was never a reply.

It turned out that his moderately explosive Unplottable Charm had worked very well indeed. He might as well have been sending the owls in search of an honest elected official.

Eventually the smarter Owls caught on to this, and when dispatched would simply flap around the castle once or twice before landing outside his windowsill to sleep before pecking on the glass and pretending to be winded.

Albus would never have believed this had he not spent an afternoon observing one owl do exactly that in full view from his desk. He promptly adopted it as his official post owl, reckoning that one smart enough to attempt to deceive him but just dumb enough to fail was absolutely perfect for his purposes. He named it Glutton, after watching it land on a student's plate at breakfast and happily devour all of their bacon before dropping a parcel at Albus' place and hooting for more.

Glutton soon became notorious for his painfully slow delivery. Whenever it reached the ministry it would, without fail, flutter from office to office flashing its Hogwarts crest and demanding treats from all before meandering over to its destination and landing on a perch to rest overnight, absolutely exhausted by an afternoon of feeding.

Albus adored this owl.

Floating up the stairs to the Owlry, Albus mused that it was possible the charm had been broken, now, but even if it were still running strong, he now remembered the names of the boy's family, and his owl would surely be able to find them.

"Glutton! Here boy!" he called, opening the door. A flutter of wings greeted him from a darkened corner, where an obscenely fat owl rested atop a double size perch.

Glutton hooted balefully at him when he neared, glaring at the letter.

"Owl treat?"

"Hoot!" Glutton pecked the morsel out of Albus' proffered hand and crunched it happily.

"Good boy! Now, I have a job for you. I need you to deliver this to Harry Potter," Albus asked it.

Glutton, ever so slowly, crossed its eyes and then began to slip off its perch.

Albus raised a steadying hand, holding the poor thing in place. "No, it's alright, never mind that," he soothed it.

Glutton recovered and hooted reproachfully.

"Instead, could you take this letter to Vernon Dursley?" he asked gently.

Glutton perked right up and held out its leg proudly. This it could do!


	4. Chapter 4

Severus sat in Poppy's office, wondering whether the damned owls would ever return.

The door opened with a faint click, and Albus floated inside, followed by Poppy, who filed in less noiselessly to sit behind her desk.

"Your owl is still away, then?" Severus asked glumly, holding his new, personal, not-to-be-touched flask of tea firmly between both hands. It was steadily burning his fingers, but he'd be damned before he let his beverage of choice out of his sight when Albus was around ever again.

Albus nodded.

Poppy gave him a look of some concern. "You're taking this very personally, Severus."

"I have good reason to," he snapped. "And you do as well!"

Poppy recoiled in her chair, and he hastened to head off an argument. "I apologize, Poppy. You deserve nothing but my best behavior."

Now she looked at him as if he'd grown a third arm, but inclined her head in acceptance.

Albus piped up, "I could always send Hagrid to secure the boy."

"Him! That's a thought," said Poppy.

Severus groaned. "The giant? Must you?"

"Half-giant, Severus," Albus corrected him sternly.

"Yes, that makes it ever so much better."

* * *

As necessity breeds invention, so does it breed stubborn determination. After Glutton returned empty taloned, a flight of Owls were dispatched to the home of the honorable Dursley clan, post haste. A number of other owls followed them, either out of curiosity or a keen desire to have a destination in mind that didn't give them all tremendous headaches.

* * *

Harry was somewhere else. Somewhere wet, somewhere creaky and somewhere that was, he felt, dreadfully boring.

Now, Harry wasn't the sort to take boredom standing up, but even draped as he was over a warped wooden table that likely hadn't been cleaned in a year he was at something of a loss. There just wasn't anything worth doing. He had no books on hand, and certainly no library would be found within walking distance. Without a job and with nothing heavy to lift he couldn't accomplish anything productive at all. What he had an abundance of was spare time. He could always sleep, but he'd already done plenty of that.

Why his uncle was so set on having Harry, and Harry alone, vacation in an unpleasant, run down holiday home by way of the coastal wilderness was a mystery Harry didn't have the energy to pursue. Vernon was Vernon, and Vernon on the warpath was a man to be agreed with very meekly.

His dear uncle had finally snapped in the early morning after two solid weeks of jumping at bright lights and threatening postmen, and it was with all the grace of any man of similar girth armed with a hammer that he'd herded the family out of bed and into the company car. After he stopped gibbering he even got around to turning the engine on. Regrettably, the parking brake escaped his notice for much of the trip. The awful grinding noises only seemed to spur him to new heights of paranoia.

Upon their arrival Vernon marched Harry inside through the back entrance, thrust a bag of groceries into his arms and informed him in no uncertain terms that they wouldn't be seeing each other for some time. There were no tearful farewells from the wife or from little Dudley, but Harry gave them a short wave through the window anyway and wished them luck with the flock of owls that kept landing on the car whenever they stopped.

The only thing about all this that struck Harry as odd was the sheer distance between him anything resembling civilization. To date, Harry had spent all but two family outings in various lodgings far away from home and was only rarely in the company of his family besides. Petunia liked to say it built character. After his first brief ( And undeserved. ) stint in a juvenile penitentiary, ( The car really, really wasn't his fault. ) Harry had been forced to agree. To say that his tours through London and environs were educational skill building exercises didn't cover the half of it.

Still, this felt too much like camping for his tastes. Whatever was he going to do for milk when he ran out?

He sought inspiration over a cup of tea, and found it after the empty cup rocked from side to side and fell over, depositing a middling sized Mallard that couldn't possibly have fit inside it upon his lap.

"Quack," remarked the duck, and it hopped off Harry's thighs to inspect the room.

Harry nodded thoughtfully. It made a solid argument.

Satisfied, the duck waddled up a wall.

* * *

When Hagrid flopped heavily to the ground, deposited there by a remote port key dropped by one of the more trustworthy owls, he did not expect to find himself on a coastal road. Nor did he expect the screaming and the hooting.

Staggering to his feet, Hagrid stared in open fascination at the sight of an obese muggle doing battle atop his car with a fair sized compliment of the Hogwarts Owlry.

In another circumstance this might have been a grim proposition for both parties, as owls are known both for their vicious talons and their comparative fragility, what with having hollow bones and not much in the way of weight.

But these were Post Owls, and Post Owls can do all sorts of things that aren't normally attributed to their lesser brethren. These owls were displaying that not only could they hover in place, but they could lift a grown man off his feet while they did so, and being batted out of the air by a man with a briefcase in hand certainly didn't phase them in the least.

The rest of the Hogwarts Owls perched in rows on a nearby overhead line, watching the festivities and occasionally swapping out with the combatants. Some of them held places of honor above the rest, clutching articles of clothing in their blunted talons. Others were eating whatever unfortunate rodents happened to live in the area until their arrival.

The owls were ahead by two halves of a coat, a shirt sleeve and a shoe. And if Hagrid wasn't mistaken, a pair of industrious spotted bulk delivery owls were making an effort to add a hubcap to their collection as well.

He now understood why there hadn't been any replies to their letters.

* * *

Surveying the winding course of civilization he'd traced under his nose, Harry extended a trail to overlook what would have been a wonderful location for a waterfront resort if only there hadn't been a swamp in the way. While Harry paid little attention to scale, he went to great pains to ensure the squiggly roads were placed just so.

Harry wasn't going to clean the place, but he wasn't above drawing pictures in the dust. Great Britain had never looked better.

"Wark," the duck remarked from the kitchen nook, pointing out that the mainland didn't look at all like a sausage link. Harry flicked a piece of toast at it. The morsel bounced off a counter top and out of sight.

Harry heard something scrabbling outside and glanced at the front door. It was still firmly shut. Boarded up, in fact. Goodness only knew why. Beyond it? Lots of outside and nowhere to go. Freedom was one of those things that did not reside in the eye of the beholder. Nor did it, in his estimation, reside in the liver. This despite what his uncle had once explained to a potted plant Harry had been hiding behind at the time. Something of a lush, was uncle.

There was a faint thump. A bit of fluff drifting from the ceiling caught his eyes for a moment and just as swiftly released them. Harry made more squiggles.

It came as a surprise to Harry when all of his dust blew away.

It was a few seconds after the splintered door crashed into the wall by his head that the little part of Harry that was still keeping updated on current events realized that his evening had taken an alarming turn. The rest of him was preoccupied by a solid chunk of masonry that hadn't missed.

"Wha'. . . Wuzza?" he said faintly. His face felt wet.

Further inquiries were put on hold when Harry caught sight of movement. The cause of the effect appeared to be a very large man. The sort who in the act of standing did not merely remain upright, but aggressively occupied space in the vertical and horizontal on an unprecedented scale. A man possessed of a great deal of substance. Not a fat man, but a very large one. The man looked into the room cautiously and stepped inside, smiling sheepishly at Harry. He shook some water off his coat and explained himself, "Ah, sorry 'bout tha', the door was-"

Stepped inside, he did, right past where the door used to be. The door frame was gone too. Along with some of the wall. Certainly there was plenty of room for through traffic, now. And visible beyond? Cloudy skies and a light drizzle. Overnight low of three.

Harry frowned in consternation while the man sat across from him and dug through the pockets of his immense coat. He was saying something about cakes. And . . . Pigs? Yes, he was definitely saying something about pigs.

Harry's eyes watered. He blinked. It didn't help. He blinked some more.

The man brandished something at him. Pausing in mid flinch, Harry nodded in a detached sort of way and settled back to examine the package the man had produced.

"A belated 'appy birthday, 'Arry!" the man exclaimed, opening the carton.

Harry stared at the offering. "Waffle?" he tried.

"-'course, I've missed rather a lot of them, but-"

"Quack," the duck reminded Harry, departing through the sun . . . He glanced at it in confusion. No, the sun was outside. This was a thingy. Light.

And this on the table was . . . Not a waffle.

Oh, cake.

Right. What's that, then?

More thoughts bubbled up and popped somewhere in his skull.

Oh!

After wiping the tears from his eyes, Harry ate his cake as directed and made to appear as unoffensive as possible. The caramel topping was delightful. If this were all some elaborate advert for a bakery he'd be sure to visit in the future.

Harry made a noncommittal noise when the man asked him something that made no sense.

The man was not pleased, but Harry didn't have the foggiest notion of what he was going on about. Harry nodded now and then and smiled lopsidedly, trying to look attentive. This was difficult, as his eyes kept crossing without him telling them to.

Hit head still hurt.

Good cake, though. Provided that the crazy man didn't hit him for looking confused, as seemed imminently likely, he might be inclined to make a friend somewhere and take them along to buy another one.

His thoughts drifted a little further, and after some time he passed out.


	5. Chapter 5

Smiling fondly, Hagrid picked a few stray bits of shattered brick out of the boy's hair. Harry must have been very tired, he thought. Poor lad, his scar still bleeding like that. It looked like it had gotten bigger since he was a babe. Hopefully it was only a rare thing.

He draped Harry's unresponsive body over his shoulder and marched through the entrance.

It never occurred to Hagrid that the fresh wound might have been thanks to his own efforts at breaking and entering with style, and even if it had, he likely wouldn't have worried. Blunt force trauma to the head had never troubled Hagrid much, and he didn't see why it would bother anyone else.

* * *

On the whole, Harry reflected some time later, sharing a leaky boat with a tragically confused travelling pork pastry salesman wasn't so bad.

For one, the tunnel vision had gone away. And if he were so inclined he'd probably be able to stand up without falling down. For another, he still held a sizeable quantity of cake, and for a fourth? Well, their boat, ( It looked like a boat, at any rate. It had a . . . Thingy. A keel? Something like that, and some benches and there was paint. It floated on water. A mariner might have called it a ship. Or not. Harry really didn't know. ) was being propelled by a glowing pink umbrella. Presumably the color made all the difference.

That struck him as something worth questioning, but he wasn't about to argue the point. He'd already been clobbered once.

He wasn't certain as to just what had hit him, but it must have been a doozy. In addition, he had not the faintest notion of how he had gotten here. The crazy man had something to do with it, though. His head still hurt abominably. He noticed that a flotilla of rubber ducks was keeping pace in the water alongside them, and he reached over to squeeze one. It squeaked sympathetically and his headache eased.

The boat slowed sharply, diverting the crazy man from expounding on his latest hallucination in favour of bludgeoning it mercilessly and muttering nonsense in what Harry surmised to be a frightening amalgam of Latin and Spanish. Harry watched in silence, accepting that some things were not for him to know.

Still, pink umbrella. That was good for a laugh, hey?

A few choice words and solid whacks later, a loud crack sounded from something Harry dearly hoped wasn't important and they began to move in earnest once more.

He went back to sleep.

* * *

In these modern days, many young men in their late teens tend to be quite tall. Harry could not count himself among their number, but he wasn't faring poorly. He still felt very small next to Hagrid. It was soothing, however, to note that he wasn't alone in this. Hagrid's size proved sufficiently intimidating that every side walk he stomped along emptied of competing pedestrians in short order. This was just as well, the man needed his space.

"Hagrid? Hagrid there's cars there! They're not going to sto-" Harry winced, "Well maybe that one did, then, but my point sta-" Harry winced again. "Oh _come on_. Are you even listening to me?"

"Not far now," rumbled Hagrid, the very model of unconcern.

Harry made a distressed noise in the back of his throat and muttered an oath. Aloud, he said, "If I were a mean spirited sort . . . I'm not, you understand. But if I were, see, I'd point out-" he skipped over some dog leavings and kept up a brisk walk in Hagrid's wake, "I'd point out that you said just that not two hours ago."

"Faith, 'Arry."

Harry made a moue of distaste and hurried past a terrified woman in a Buick. "You know, I tried that once. Then the branch broke. Lucky there was this rose bush in the way, or I might have done myself an injury." They crossed another street, this one mercifully bereft of traffic. "You're a terrible guardian, you know. Guardians don't laugh at stories like that. I can see you laughing at me. Don't think I can't."

Hagrid lengthened his stride.

"There were dogs waiting for me outside the rose bush, I might add. Mean little things, got teeth that could shear right through to your bones. Jaws like sodding bear traps- Hey. Hey! Your legs are longer than mine, you know. Good lord, stop that. Stop being tall!"

* * *

Well into the evening Hagrid came to a halt on a corner lit by two street lamps and a neon flamingo. He leaned to peer inside a little hideaway entrance to a restaurant.

Harry trailed after him, probing a throbbing lump at the base of his skull with his fingers. "Italian?" he asked.

"Somethin' like that, 'Arry." Hagrid shuffled to one side and Harry saw he'd missed a recessed stairway with a pair of wooden signs hanging off to the side. The first sported what looked like a donkey braining the Queen with a mallet and the smaller hanging below claimed to represent The Leaky Cauldron. The door was the sort with an iron grill on an ornamental window and a type of fancy brass handle that only looks like it can turn.

Somehow Hagrid managed to squeeze through. Harry's eyes widened at the smell when he stepped inside. Smoke and the aroma of stale beer wafted up one nostril while a hint of puke and rancid grease clawed up the other to fight a bloody battle with his appetite.

"'Ungry?" said Hagrid, looking down at Harry fondly. "Tom'll fix ye right up, lad."

"Goody." Harry smiled nervously and followed him past a coat rack without any hooks on. Fixing could be good, he considered. Or bad, that too.

As pubs go it couldn't have been called posh, but it was obviously popular. A salt and pepper crowd of mixed raincoats mingled under the surprisingly watchful gaze of an enormous hog's head over the fireplace. Harry had to remind himself as he walked that trophy heads do not wink. And they certainly don't waggle any piggy eyebrows either.

He stopped. "Ah, Hagrid? This wouldn't be Hog . . . Thingy, would it?" he asked, pointing at the head.

Hagrid looked from one to the other and chuckled. "No, 'Arry, it's not. Tha's jus' Tom's ol' wall pig."

"Wall pig. Right."

They made their way to the bar, which was currently unoccupied and unmanned. The wooden counter top looked patchy, as if someone had gone and spilled paint thinner on it here and there and let it eat clean through the varnish. With the spindly looking wooden stools and a scuffed brass foot rest at floor level, it could generously be called tacky and well worn. Harry was just grateful to have a chance to rest his feet, so he claimed the spot that looked the least shiny, right beside a glass full of umbrella tooth picks.

Ugly things, those. Were they _ever_ in fashion?

"Oi, Tom!" Hagrid bellowed.

Harry nearly toppled off the stool he'd slid atop. Hagrid had the lung capacity and range of a very enthusiastic amateur opera singer, and if anyone —No matter that most would need to be vitally distracted, perhaps terminally so, to miss a seven foot mountain of a man stomping along behind them— hadn't noticed their arrival, they were noticing now. The pub hushed while everyone got an eyeful and quickly worked back up to a dull roar. Wizarding folk learned to take big, scary men in stride, it seemed.

Funny word, that. _Wizarding_.

"Hagrid! That you?" A balding man sporting a scorched leather apron and a greased moustache strolled out from the kitchen with a platter of steaks. One of them was still raw, and they each had a stupid little umbrella toothpick sticking out at jaunty angles. "Rare to see you here these days," he said, smiling.

Hagrid blushed. "Ah, well. 'Ogwarts business, yeh know. Yer still makin' out alrigh', are yeh?"

Tom placed the platter on the extra greasy side of the bar and nodded happily. "Can't complain, custom's been picking up since . . ." he trailed off and flashed a grin in Harry's direction. "Eh, you know what." Hagrid snorted at the inside joke. Tom gave the bar a half hearted wipe with a rag from his apron pocket and shook his head wryly when it had no visible effect. "Damned cider. So, what can I get for you and your friend?" he asked.

For his part Harry sat quietly and amused himself by trying to name the people in the posters on the walls. He'd gotten as far as Elvis and The Beatles, along with a few contemporaries of theirs, before running out of celebrities he could recognize. He concentrated on maintaining a sense of general obliviousness as the platter abruptly lifted itself into the air, moved a good ten feet into the room, and safely landed at an occupied table.

Harry hadn't been reduced to gibbering like a monkey and throwing things yet and he wasn't about to start now . . . Still, he couldn't stop himself from flinching when the unloaded platter flew at him and performed a neat pirouette around his head before carrying on back into the kitchen. That was unexpected.

"The usual for me, an' whatever yeh can manage for 'Arry here," said Hagrid.

"Right. Number three with a-" Tom broke off and stared at Harry —Rather, Harry noted, at the old scar on his forehead— with an awed expression. Then he turned to Hagrid. "Not Potter. Really? _Here_? But nobody told- I mean, I wasn't expecting to host, erm."

Tom recovered after some more sputtering and gave Harry an odd sort of salute with his hand to his brow, "Ah, apologies Mister Potter, welcome back!" he exclaimed. To Hagrid he said, "You'll want the far table, then."

Harry felt that he was missing something very important. "Hagrid?" he prompted.

"And you'll be wanting a goodly stack of parchment and a quill, I'm certain." Tom added brightly, still staring at Harry's scar.

Harry leaned back warily.

"Well, uh. Tha' migh' be best," said Hagrid, nudging Harry toward a corner of the pub that looked much like the rest save for a deep gouge in the floor boards. A lonely looking table was missing a corner. No one sat there, but someone had nailed a teddy bear to it by the leg, and the wall behind it was dominated by a massive poster of someone about his age.

"Something, something, squiggle, ridiculous font in memory of, completely obnoxious font illegible name, squiggle, in, ridiculous font something, we trust." he read, squinting at it.

This told Harry something of a story. He didn't like it much. It was one of those tales better left to newspapers and muttered insincerities at the breakfast table. More troubling, however, was that everyone sitting everywhere else seemed to be staring at him.

"Ah, 'Arry . . ." Hagrid looked hunted and cleared his throat uneasily, giving him an apologetic look, "I may 'ave forgotten abou' the, er. Pictures, an' the like."

Harry nodded vaguely and slid off his stool. An unpleasant notion stabbed viciously at the fluff in his head and screamed obscenities in his ear. He was being thick. Very familiar indeed, was the subject of that poster taking up most of the back wall. Recognizable, even. A fantastic likeness, what with the little zigzag mark on the boy's forehead. He spotted a smaller poster beside the bar. Shame about the dragon in that one.

Whatever did that poor dragon . . . Er, that large lizard he'd never heard of or seen before that certainly wasn't a dragon, ever do to deserve the pink bow tie on its head and why was someone who looked exactly like him petting it? Further, why was the picture moving?

Hagrid _had_ made some vague noises about this and the other and the you know what with the you know where and Harry was convinced there must have been a point to it all, but he was damned if he could make sense of it. The head wound had done Harry no favours.

A youngish woman at a nearby table appeared to be sizing him up like a side of meat. An outrageously plumed duck looked up and quacked meaningfully at him from the brim of her immense hat, and then went back to grooming itself as if it had been there all along. An orange feather drifted down into her cleavage.

Harry glared at the duck. Now was not the time. It huffed and quacked at him again. Harry blinked. Oh yes, he was staggeringly famous. Hagrid had mentioned that at some length, hadn't he?

More notions took up arms, and at last the feeling of being vaguely concussed left Harry all in a rush. Before he could bolt for the door, Hagrid clapped a hand on his arm and slipped a mug in his hands. "Steady, 'Arry," he whispered urgently. "Jus' like I told yeh, righ'?"

Harry couldn't remember what Hagrid might have told him, but he took a thoughtful sip, managed not to choke, and made a mental right turn anyway. The crowd rather liked it when he sketched the very same salute Tom had given him.

Some of them actually started to clap.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry stared, dumbfounded. "Wait, what?"

Hagrid burbled cheerfully and waved his tankard in a wide arc, threatening the airspace of a passing well wisher and forcing another into a full foamy retreat, "'Arry, 'Arry. You're an 'ero, lad! A damned 'ero, an' no mistake!"

"Hear, hear!" cried a swarthy man at a nearby table. His companions nodded earnestly. It was a popular sentiment.

They'd already gotten the apologies out of the way. Hagrid honestly hadn't known that there would be a great big poster of Harry right there for comparison's sake, and Tom was very sorry for the trouble, what with exposing mister Potter outside of a scheduled event.

This worried Harry, as he wasn't aware that he'd ever attended any in the past.

Happily, drinks were on the house for the pair. Everyone felt this was a marvelous idea:

"Harry's old enough, right fellas?" asked Tom with a wink.

"'Course he is, stands to reason. Bloody great hero and all, strong drink prob'ly bein' mothers milk an' the like. Got a brow that could sink a thousand ships, or somefin' along those lines," agreed one of the more eloquent patrons. A lonely witch bought this man a drink shortly thereafter and they hit off splendidly.

Hagrid hadn't taken much convincing to share in a few pints. Harry was pleased, it made the interrogation that much smoother. This was especially helpful since the man was convinced that he had already relayed most of the important information when they first met. Harry held up a finger to prevent his companion from waxing poetic while he signed a book and made soothing noises at a shell shocked bar rodent who hadn't ducked —"Quack, quack!"— Hagrid's arm waving quickly enough earlier.

Hagrid took the opportunity to quaff. He'd had a lot of practice over the years and was getting to be quite good at it, bless Tom's heart.

Signature dispatched, Harry grabbed his own, rather smaller, mug and leaned forward. "We've covered that, yes. Bad man with magic stick, very tragic. A publicity campaign that you can best believe I will be discussing with this Mugwumpian headmaster of yours at length," Harry wasn't certain how offended to be yet, but he figured that righteous indignation would be a good starting point, "my name spoken in every home and my face on every street corner, fantastic. But what's this about the money?"

A purple brassiere large enough to comfortably clothe a small child arced high overhead to land on a nearby lampshade, where it swung to hoots of appreciation.

"Yeh didn't think yer parents would leave yeh with nuthin', did yeh?" Hagrid's eyebrows each took on an offended aspect. One drooped far enough to hold a hurried conference with his beard while the other climbed to nestle in his hairline.

A duck flopped heavily out of Hagrid's mug and clambered up his arm to nestle on his head, where it winked at Harry.

Harry returned the looks of duck, man and caterpillar-like eyebrows steadily. Parents or the lack there of, public recognition, and murderous loons —"Quack!"— were all sorts of base conditions that could be worked around, but money was important. "Can we assume for the moment that, uh . . ." He trailed off when a lacy, red garment of some sort landed on his shoulder. He picked it off and held it up to get a better look. Stretching it this way and that didn't seem to make it any easier to identify. "What the hell is this even for?" he asked eventually.

( His apparent interest in red garters would later come back to haunt him, as an eye witness account of this would run as the cover story for a very special edition of Teen Witch Weekly that Sunday. )

Hagrid ignored his question. "Hmph. Ol' family, the Potters. The bank'll have plen'y in yer name."

Harry tossed the alarming thing aside and speared a slice of rubbery egg from his plate. He imagined that if he listened closely enough he might hear it scream, and then ate it. "But how will they know I'm me?" he wondered aloud. After a moment he took pity on the man and saved him some thought, "The genuine Potter, I mean, and not some random bloke with a funny looking scar?"

"Magic, 'Arry." Hagrid grinned at him behind his dripping mustache and took a deep pull of his drink.

Harry frowned. He then examined his own beverage very closely. "What am I having again?"

This too, took some time for Hagrid to process. "Eh? Butterbeer, I reckon."

"Really?" It didn't taste at all like beer. But then, there was alcohol somewhere in there, he could tell. Harry shrugged. "Marvelous . . . Thingy, word." Another sip helped get his thoughts in order, "Stuff! Marvelous stuff." He nodded gravely at another fellow come to gawk at his scar. "I think I'll need something stronger before we leave." More patrons streamed into the gloom to be met with shouts of greeting and fingers pointed squarely at Harry. "And a hat. Or a bunny," he added, waving at them.

After another round this last made perfect sense to Hagrid, and he agreed that a bunny would probably solve everything. Plans were drawn, Firewhiskey was ordered, decisions were made, and Harry's new lingerie collection continued to grow.

* * *

"And on a serious note, I would like to ask that you please refrain from feeding the Wall Pig any more damned toffee, thank you!" Tom had just announced an extended happy hour in honor of Harry Potter's return to the public eye. Something that again worried Harry greatly until he drained his mug and asked for a stronger drink.

With the addition to the festivities of a dazed three piece band that had been found passed out in a gutter some blocks away, the pub was getting livelier by the minute. If it could be called a pub, by now. It didn't much resemble its humble beginnings earlier in the evening, and would now be better called a night club.

The nice thing about mixing magic and parties was that if there wasn't enough room to dance, someone could be counted on to make some. There were a great many tables and lights and multicolored bubbles all around that had not been present when Harry and Hagrid first entered, and the room was considerably larger. One wizard with too much time on his hands had even conjured some brass poles out of a case of empty beer bottles. Tom was working like a man possessed. He'd recruited a few waitresses and a chef out of the mess of bodies.

Witches and Wizards knew how to have fun. This was heartening, but Harry had things to do, didn't he?

He held a cold bottle of something that tasted like mint flavored paint thinner to his forehead and closed his eyes. "Hagrid, my buddy. Hagrid, my pal," he sang, sucking his breath in past his teeth, "we've got to get out of here."

Their escape wasn't a dramatic affair. The party had long since become self sustaining and wasn't about to slow down because the man of the hour had wandered off. Hagrid simply wrapped Harry in his coat, picked him up, and waded through the crowd to safety.

Save for some nosier members of the press, all of whom had been thus far prevented from interviewing Harry at Hagrid's insistence, nobody followed them very far.

* * *

A shrill scream followed by a meaty thud and the sound of someone whimpering was all the street smart observer would have heard while they were running away from the scary man in the dark alleyway. Had they turned the corner just a few moments prior they would have borne witness to the trailing end of a conversation punctuated by blunt force trauma. This, were they inclined to think such thoughts upon seeing a man tossed over a wall, would have brought to mind the life cycle of the metaphorical lemming.

As it was, the poor man who had turned the corner a few moments before even that wasn't street smart at all, and furthermore, he had been silly enough to attempt to interfere. He joined another fellow to sleep off the night in a dumpster.

"Do yeh think I maybe 'it 'im too 'ard?" Hagrid asked worriedly. He held a limp wizard up by the collar and examined him critically. A bit too pushy with a camera, this one.

Harry looked over from where he stood rifling through a wallet and nudged another man with his boot. "Is he breathing?" He fished out a handful of funny looking coins and pocketed them, feeling pleasantly relaxed to be dealing with something familiar. Looting the bodies always was his favorite part. Hagrid was a swell fellow, making him feel at home like this.

"Hm," Hagrid gently bounced his prize's head off the alley wall and was rewarded with a pained groan. "A little," he confirmed.

"Then he's fine." Harry tossed the wallet over his shoulder and looked up and down the alley they'd wandered into. "So. Which way?" he asked brightly.

"Eh?"

"Which way are we going?" Harry clarified patiently.

"Oh! Righ' through 'ere, 'Arry!" Hagrid pointed to his left.

Was he really? Harry adopted a pained expression. Yes, Hagrid was pointing at the wall.

Harry looked the brickwork up and down and tried very hard not to giggle. "I'm not going to ask, and you're not going to say, 'magic', so could you please make it go away before someone else comes?"

"Righ', righ'. Pay attention now." Hagrid produced his umbrella with a flourish and poked a brick. "It's . . . Uh. This one? Or, no, no." More bricks were prodded. "Not that 'un either . . . Here we go!" A final thwack rang in the dark and him umbrella flashed fluorescent pink. They both waited expectantly.

Nothing happened.

One of the men Hagrid had disposed of woke up with a start and fell further into the dumpster. "Help me," he begged weakly. "Is someone there? Anyone?"

Harry twiddled his thumbs and looked toward the sky. The clouds were clearing up.

He looked at Hagrid sidelong. "Are you-"

"I'm sure tha's the righ' brick," Hagrid interrupted, glaring at it. "It'll be open in a bit. Anyhow, back in the coat with yeh. Don't wan' anyone else 'ollering yer name."

"What? Wait, no!"

The entrance opened moments later, and the eminently fashionable witch on the other side yelped and took off running with her skirts bunched up in her hands.

"See," Hagrid said brightly, hoisting a squirming Harry aloft. "Never fails."


	7. Chapter 7

"Mmph," said Harry, still glad to be away from the hand wringing, song singing and flying unmentionables. Even if he was being carried inside a carpet with sleeves.

Undignified a mode of travel as it was, there were benefits. In Diagon Alley's later hours those with any sense of self preservation didn't pay much attention to large men carrying suspicious packages. And he didn't have to try walking in a straight line yet, that was good too. Harry's boots bounced rhythmically on the cobbles as they went.

"Mmph, mhm, mmm," he mumbled, spying something shiny from between layers of moleskin and dried mud. "Mmphle. Nnf?"

"Gringotts sure is somethin', innit?" Hagrid breathed, weaving toward the gaudiest toadstool of a building Harry had ever laid eyes upon. It looked like the result of an unholy union between a mosque and a maximum security prison. It even had a minaret with a search light attached to it sticking out one corner. And the sequins. Who put purplesequins on a building?

"Mmmph," Harry agreed reasonably.

They got through the massive, bronze plated doors of the bank without incident, but before they could proceed through the foyer they were both faced with a new and exciting problem: Harry was trapped in Hagrid's coat.

"No, I'm not stuck. I just can't . . . Get . . . Loose. That's all," Harry insisted.

Hagrid's first inclination was to shake him out.

"Ow. Ow! Hey!"

Harry's response was to clutch at it for dear life.

"Put me down!"

Gravity won as it usually does.

What the pair failed to notice was that along with the mess of dirt they'd just deposited on the marble floor, was that Harry's head wound had contributed as well.

* * *

"When someone screams for you to stop flinging them through the air, the appropriate response is not a belly laugh." Harry groused.

Hagrid's beard and mustache contorted in an unmistakable smirk. "An' miss seein' yeh hug the groun' like tha'?"

Harry thought Hagrid looked entirely too pleased with himself. "Arsehole," he muttered.

As they stumbled in the general direction of the night booths, Harry tried, and failed, not to gawk at the goblins and their unique sense of style. He'd never imagined that someone would waste so much gold leaf on furniture. Or walls. The domed ceiling looked like a fruit cake made out of plaster and shiny rocks, with some drowning cherubs thrown in for good measure.

Oh, yes, there were cherubs. Were there ever bloody cherubs. Not gargoyles, no. Nothing less than chubby cherubs would do for a goblin institution. They stared dulled eyed from the walls, under the tables and strapped to the chandeliers. Many of them were in various states of dismemberment or gilt, depending on whether they were depicted as bringing gold or trying to steal it. Which case this was, was not always made entirely clear. Some of them seemed to have been mutilated on general principle.

Walking past a bench with little wooden cherubs for legs, Harry couldn't help but think that they were pushing their point a bit far.

The goblins themselves, though, they were something else. The tellers were small, greenish or greyish and looked very much like Harry had expected something called a goblin might. The guards stood considerably taller and wore enough armor, including closed helmets fashioned in the likeness of snarling creatures of fable, that he was certain a grown man would have difficulty picking one up. The sharp, pointy things they carried would only add to the trouble.

All this delighted Harry to no end.

* * *

A security goblin who had been watching this drunken slapstick comedy on a video feed stared at the flashing runes on the wall beside him and tried to remember what they meant.

* * *

Just-Razzle Rockchewer, senior accountant, was enjoying a bowl of buttered popped corn, a human delicacy imported from Muggle London, when a cheerful beep sounded from the vicinity of his good kidney. This was not entirely unprecedented, but he made quite the mess when he jumped in his seat.

He glared around at the kernels spread around his desk and dug into the pocket of his sport coat for the offending pager.

Upon reading the neon green text, he calmly placed the pager upon his desk, took a deep breath, and after thumbing the appropriate button, whooped an ancient goblin war cry into a magical speaking tube with the volume turned all the way up.

The sound of someone falling out of their chair piped from it, and after some muffled cursing the goblin at the other end respectfully suggested that he needed a better hobby.

Razzle suggested that they were a whinging sissy and asked for a favor.

The request was met with incredulity.

Razzle repeated himself cheerfully.

After some more grumbling, he had his way, and a short announcement was piped over the speakers throughout Gringots.

* * *

Hagrid and Harry had just found a free teller when the public announcement system in the bank crackled to life, piping from the mouths of select cherubs.

Ding, dong, bing!

What followed could only be described as the sound of a Frenchman locked in mortal combat with a set of bagpipes, accompanied by the faint screams of a fellow speaking English who was apparently desperate for "Someone! Anyone!" to make the dragons stop trying to eat him.

A bing, dong, ding later and to everyone's relief it was over.

"What was that about dragons?" Harry asked Hagrid.

"Oh, they've got lots! They keep em like muggle guard dogs," Hagrid explained cheerfully.

The teller, who until then had been looking less than enthusiastic about his job, seemed to have perked up visibly after the announcement.

"Evening, sirs," he grated. "Can I help you?"

* * *

After some discussion with the teller over the bank's very latest dragon based security systems, Harry was convinced goblins were the most fantastic people he'd ever met. Although he could have done without the eye watering tile mosaics. And maybe the floor was a bit too wobbly for his liking.

But this? No. This mine cart thing he'd been led to simply would not do. There were better things in life than roller coasters, which existed, he felt, specifically to keep the Dudleys of the world far removed and possibly plummeting to their deaths somewhere away from the Harrys, and Harry felt that the tradition was worth observing.

Besides, he could see the artfully loosened bolts. All it needed was a cheerful looking stuffed bear wearing an ugly vest beside a yay high sign and a ticket booth. Harry let Hagrid get in and swung the little grated door shut after him before he could object.

A hurried nod to Whatshisname the goblin porter, and off the pair rattled without him.

While he waved goodbye it struck Harry that if ever there was a person who wouldn't fall over themselves at his new found celebrity, it would be one who wore a necklace strung with human teeth.

And so it was that he wished Hagrid good luck on his trip into what appeared to be the bowels of hell and stumbled off to accost the biggest, meanest looking Goblin he could find. Preferably the extra shiny one with the snazzy unicorn helmet and the axe thingy he'd spied on the way in beside the decapitated cherub fountain.

He hesitated in the hallway, unsure as to which way to go. If pressed, Harry would have admitted to being a little lost. But only a little.

"Eeny, meeny, miny . . . That-away!" he decided aloud, and set off in the direction that looked the fanciest. Left, in this case.

He got some funny looks when he stopped to giggle at a fern.

Stuff them. He'd had a long day.


	8. Chapter 8

Rattling through the tunnel complex deep under Gringotts, Griphook the porter reflected on the many things in life that he didn't like.

This cart was one. A sharp clunk sounded under the wheels, and they transferred to a rail leading to the deeper, more exclusive vaults. 'The Lemon', some of the humans in their employ called it.

Griphook just called it a pain in his mottled arse. Listening with half an ear to the half giant's whimpers from the seat behind him, he mouthed a command word just in time to avoid splattering them both against a sheer cliff face. They descended on air. Griphook hated heights. Muttering another command, he saved them from a sudden stop on the cavern floor and sent the cart screaming down a cramped service tunnel, spraying a rooster tail of yellow sparks where it brushed the unfinished stone.

There were things Griphook really could have done without. He had a list. Some items were a bit further up than the rest and were written down in red ink. One of these was the dragon up ahead who kept trying to cook everything that went past her. This despite numerous sternly worded letters sent to the dragon handlers by the services department. It seemed the cart driver's guild would need to stop delivering food again to get their way. That was fine with Griphook, as he didn't like the handlers much at the best of times. Let them deal with hungry dragons for a week and see how smug they felt after that. He'd just take clients the much longer, dragon free way.

Ah, and here she was, already working herself up as they rattled around a bend. One of their rarer breeds, Snorty was an avian dragon uniquely suited to living in enormous multilevel caverns deep in the earth. Unfortunately, those were currently occupied by the older, more experienced dragons, and wouldn't be freed up for some time until they were returned to the above ground pens. So here she was, guarding his favorite service tunnel.

Calmly advising his passenger to keep all of his limbs inside the vehicle, Griphook pressed a red button button clearly labeled "In Case Of Fire," and ducked.

They sped on through a cone of bluebell flame. Snorty was in good form tonight.

Griphook didn't like the color blue, either.

* * *

"Cor," breathed a remarkably stupid human, "those are real, aren't they?"

Junior Hall Guard On Duty Snagtooth 'Lizzie' Rockchewer squinted up her nose at him in horror.

"The molars, I mean?" he clarified.

Something had obviously gone awry in the rearing of this one. Behold, here was a wizard who had been dropped on his head. From the look of the dried blood on his face it had been recent, too.

Lizzie shifted her Ceremonial Not A Halberd At All nervously. "Can I help . . . Sir?" A gentleman bent over a writing desk nearby wrote a smidgeon faster. The rest of the guards standing at attention along the hall watched them with interest.

Her tone had a quality to it that took the wizard aback, and at last he appeared to realize the danger. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. I've just never met any goblins before," he bared his teeth and made a worrying human noise, but otherwise gave her no good reason to kill him until he went away. "My name's Harry."

Lizzie digested this and cringed visibly. So this, according to the announcement, was the one human she absolutely wasn't allowed to skewer. A half remembered lecture about public relations came to mind. "Would sir like an explanatory pamphlet?" she offered hesitantly.

Of course he would.

She'd just began to make her escape from the wizard as he perused a pamphlet detailing the bank's services and history when she spied a goblin in a suit nearly running to meet them.

A moment later she blanched. That wasn't the floor manager. It was her father.

* * *

Razzle watched the pair go with a licentious eye. He had made his fortune with a natural flair for dealing with wizard kind. Wizards liked Just Razzle, and he liked them, within reason.

When asked, a goblin would have made a sound like a bear hacking up a hairball, but a native English speaker would have described him as unusually chipper for a goblin.

He used his introduction as a sort of test. Anyone stupid enough to think that 'Just' was some sort of goblin first name and not the English word would be placed firmly in the category occupied by people with more gold than sense. It was his duty as a goblin to ensure that the natural order was maintained, and their gold tended to stay with the bank.

Mister Potter had passed with flying colors. Not only had he addressed him properly, 'Pleasure to meet you, Razzle!', but for some unfathomable reason mister Potter had gone to the trouble of singling out Razzle's daughter. This was a strange sort of thing for a wizard to do, in this day and age.

Strange, but not unheard of, not entirely. There was mention of it in some particularly old tomes of history, but it still came as something of a surprise. Those tomes were the sort that tended to be stained in essential fluids and possibly slightly burnt.

Most amusingly, he'd even gone to the trouble of making up some silly excuse about wanting to learn more about goblin culture.

Razzle chuffed at the notion.

Very cute, mister Potter. In all your years you've never set foot in this bank, but tonight you wander in and want to learn about our culture. Here you enter, blooded, drunk as a lord, without your wand, wearing no enchanted clothing and obviously completely unable to defend yourself either physically or with magic. And with exactly one retainer. A big one, granted, but only one. Could you be any more old fashioned?

Potter would make a wonderful son in law, he was certain. Any wizard brave enough to place himself at their mercy merited consideration, but a rich and powerful one was even better.

* * *

The stupid wizard stood in front of her, staring in slack jawed awe at a massive painting covering the gallery wall in biblical style. "Bloody, that's something," he breathed.

Lizzie shouldered her halberd miserably and trudged after him to examine an etched silver tag under the frame, "Majestic Burning, commissioned to commemorate the third glorious rebellion of sixteen thirty two. Thirty wizards were slain in their beds," she read.

"And tho-"

"The fourth, fifth and sixth glorious rebellions of sixteen thirty two," she said flatly, inviting no further comment. The tiny golden urns set into the wall unsettled her.

He nodded vacantly and paced the length of the hall on too long legs, making light as he went of very expensive cultural artifacts while tainting the very air he breathed. Then he turned a corner ahead of her and set off yet another proximity ward. Lizzie's ears twitched.

"Hah! Here's that lord Albright being decapitated again for looking like a ponce!" he called excitedly.

"It was a great victory for the under people," she said, rounding the corner to see him admiring a work done in pastel and human blood on vellum. Entirely too enthusiastic, this Potter. Harry. Stupid wizard name.

"Why twice, though?" he asked, reading the date on the dedication, which placed this historical event a full week after the first.

Lizzie clanked after him, considering this. "I believe the consensus was that he deserved it," she said.

They came upon the main attraction of the gallery, a wicked mace of exactly the size, shape and color of a wooden cricket bat which had recently been found embedded in the engine block of a tight fisted Minister's car. It hung suspended from the ceiling by a mess of iron chains, and seemed to twitch now and then. Nobody had yet bothered to clean the gooey bits off.

"This is Akrl'hal'gark." ( 'An ugly magic thing that hits people.' Literal translation often leaves something to be desired. ) Lizzie looked at the chains hopefully. "It strains against its bonds to sink itself into your soft, pink flesh."

The stupid wizard looked impressed, and Lizzie smirked.

The stupid wizard then appeared to be in deep thought, and Lizzie cringed. This stupid wizard asked bad questions.

"Say, you're a girl goblin, aren't you?"

She stared at him in growing despair. This was too much. Playing tour guide was bad enough, but now he'd gone and asked her that? She wasn't trained for this. All she wanted was to find a crate of chocolate and have a good cry.

Stupid wizard! Stupid wizard! Stupid, stupid wizard!

Maybe she wouldn't feel like crying after she had her chocolate. She could probably find some in the store rooms, and her father had told her to show every courtesy . . .

So she decided to do just that, and dragged the stupid wizard Harry along with her to find some stupid wizard chocolate.

She even remembered to answer his stupid wizard question.


	9. Chapter 9

Harry followed the goblin girl with only a little trepidation.

"So, Snagtooth, where are we going?"

"Into the warren," she snapped, clanking ahead of him.

Harry shrugged to himself, as she couldn't see it. Alright. The warren. Huh. That explained a lot.

She sped up and looked around a corner, before stepping back and motioning for him to hurry up. "Come on, wizard."

Harry lengthened his stride, wondering how she managed to move faster than him without looking as if she were running. His legs were considerably longer, after all.

When he reached her, she grabbed one of his hands as they walked around the corner together.

There wasn't any more corridor. What there was, was a gently sloping tunnel. They started down it hand in hand, with her balancing her halberd such that it didn't threaten to slap him in the face as they went.

Harry looked down at her, bemused. It was so strange to see someone looking so at home in such an ornately suit of armor. At least that was his impression. It was just so well fitted that it translated body language well, which was admittedly a toss up for him, as he'd never been schooled in the habits of small green people.

As they traveled deeper he was saved admitting that he couldn't see in the dark by a series of lights strung along the ceiling.

"Are those run on magic or electricity?" he asked, squinting at them. He couldn't make out any wires.

Her unicorn helmet regarded him for a moment, and he could have sworn she seemed less tense than before. "Yes," she said, sounding positively smug.

Harry started to laugh. "Yes? Yes doesn't answer that question, Snag."

"Stupid wizard Potter is not very well informed," she observed breezily, before stopping dead in her tracks and dropping his hand.

Harry stopped as well and looked down at her, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

"You didn't mean to say that out loud, did you?" he asked, grinning.

Her helmet regarded his shoes. " . . . No."

She looked nervous as hell. That wasn't a standoffish stance. That was an 'Oh, shit, I just insulted someone my boss told me to make nice with,' stance. "That's okay, I respect honesty. For what it's worth I'm sorry for having you dragged off your job just to show me around," he assured her.

She cocked her head at him and relaxed visibly.

"You are a very strange wizard," she said at last.

Harry offered her his hand. "I'm sure I'll be getting that a lot, Snag. So what are the warrens, exactly?"

To his pleasure, she took it, and they began walking down the tunnel once more.

"They are . . . A city. Of sorts. Our home beneath London."

Harry took this in and mentally raised his impression of the importance of the goblin people up about a hundred notches.

"We're staying under the bank, but the warrens extend very far."

"Cool!"

Snagtooth's unicorn helmet was pointed squarely at him again, and he had to lean his shoulder back a little to avoid the spike.

"Most wizards would not say that."

Harry was getting the impression that his interest in goblins was not going to be a popular sentiment when he got out among his new peers.

"Well, hell, you're the . . . Uh. Fourth goblin I've spoken to so far, and you haven't given me a single reason not to like you. Not much of a sample size, I'll admit."

"Most wizards only speak to our tellers, if at all. They still hate us," she continued morosely.

It occurred to Harry that there was probably a reason why the bank had armed guards lining the front hall that extended beyond tradition. Were relations really that hostile?

They walked in silence for a bit, until he decided that she was going to cheer up whether she liked it or not. "But right now, Snag, you're not with just any old wizard. You're with Stupid Wizard Potter, and he doesn't hate you at all."

Snagtooth chuffed, and he realized she was laughing.

* * *

Eventually the tunnel they'd been walking along opened onto another, and they were no longer alone.

Walking hand in hand, shabby looking wizard and goblin guard, they cut an odd pair. The goblins going about their business, slipping through side tunnels, directing carts or talking to one another were not at all shy about staring, but they didn't challenge them.

To Harry's ears their language was utterly incomprehensible, and he couldn't even tell anything from the tone, but they did not look pleased to see him. He couldn't even see their faces, as goblin fashion seemed to dictate head coverings of one kind or another. They were, essentially, all wearing what looked like winter clothes.

That made sense. It was bloody cold down here. From time to time he spied a door momentarily ajar as a goblin slipped through, and he realized that while the main tunnels were unadorned but for lights and the occasional carved runic script, the interior rooms glittered.

This wasn't just some sort of service tunnel network for the bank. This was their home.

"I'm getting the impression that I'm not supposed to be here, Snag," he observed weakly.

"If you were alone, that would be true. But what they think is unimportant. I was instructed to show you every courtesy," she said, sounding irritated. Harry didn't think she was irritated with him, though. That brightened his mood quite a lot.

"So what exactly does that entail at this moment? You just said we were heading to the warrens, and, uh. This looks like a warren."

"Yes. You've been looking."

Harry smiled. He was getting a feeling for her tone of voice, which didn't quite match up to human inflections when speaking English. She was teasing him. "Is that bad?"

"No, it made you quiet for a while."

He snickered, and a few goblins gave him venomous looks. He just smiled at them and nodded in passing.

Their shocked looks just amused him more.

"We are going to find chocolate," she explained, leading him down a smaller tunnel.

Harry blinked at her dumbly. "Alright."

"Chocolate is very much important to goblins." This sounded like the beginning of a lecture.

"Really? I thought you wouldn't be fond of human products? Or do you make your own sort?" he prompted, making a wide step over a crack in the floor.

"Goblins make terrible chocolate. Only humans make good chocolate."

"So what's chocolate to a gob-" Harry stared in horror at a corpulent white mass of flesh heaving itself along the tunnel floor. "Oh-good-god-what-is-that."

"Purring Maggot," she said, not even turning to look.

"That is possibly the ugliest thing I have ever seen."

"They get worse."

They were coming up to a section of the tunnel that looked unfinished. This, he supposed, was an actual service tunnel.

"To answer your question, chocolate is the very best food," she said dreamily. "Very best. Absolutely the best."

She clanked along beside him for a moment before adding, "And stupid wizard Potter can carry much chocolate."

Harry didn't have anything to say to that.

* * *

Harry craned his neck, looking up at the palates of crates and boxes that, presumably, held a great deal of chocolate. Snagtooth had opened a door to what appeared to be a very, very large warehouse. He hadn't thought they were far enough underground for a room of this height.

After a moment's thought he decided that he needed to stop missing the train and accept that whenever he saw something strange, magic was probably involved in some capacity. Perhaps the tunnels were enchanted, perhaps the room was, perhaps they both were, maybe they were actually a kilometer under the north pole. He had no way to know without asking.

"Is this all chocolate?" he asked eventually.

Snagtooth was practically bouncing with excitement. "Much is, other things are kept elsewhere," she explained, leaning her halberd against a wall and running to examine the boxes stacked on the nearest palate. "We should not be here, really, but . . ."

"Every courtesy, right." Harry stood and watched her read labels and tut to herself before she slit a plastic tarp and crowed in delight.

"Can stupid wizard Potter carry a stupid wizard box without a stupid wizard wand?" she asked teasingly, tapping one of the smaller sorts, which easily reached her waist.

He sauntered over, crouched and dead lifted the crate easily.

"Stupid wizard Harry advises adorable goblin Snagtooth that he is very strong," he said, looking down at her smugly.

She poked him lightly in the side as she went to recover her halberd.

"Strong or not, stupid wizard Harry will be pleased to know that adorable goblin Lizzie does not need to lead him very far," she said, sounding positively catty, and opened the door for him.

Harry grinned.

* * *

"Call me Lizzie," the goblin girl huffed, tossing her helmet and gauntlets behind the closed door with three rattling clangs.

Harry nodded dumbly, shocked at the sight. He'd been nominated carrier of crates, and had drawn a lot of attention as he followed Snag- Lizzie through the warren behind the bank proper. As he understood it, humans weren't often seen in the goblin living quarters. He imagined this was something humans didn't often see, either.

She looked . . . Cute, in an elfin sort of way. Her features were prominent, and her skin was a dark shade of grey, but that was where the similarity with the elderly goblins he'd seen so far ended. Her greater height and the lack of wrinkled skin was a change, but the glitter painted in fine swirls and spirals along her cheeks, neck and ears was what really took him by surprise. The effect was of fine lace, but in shimmering silver.

His surprise was not lost on her, and she frowned at him, cracking open a seam along the side of her curiass. "Are you going to help me or are you just going to stand there like a Grak'lat?" she grumbled, pointing out a latch she couldn't easily reach, halfway to the small of her back.

"Oh! Um, sure." Harry searched for a place to drop the crate and settled on the foot of her bed, which was about the size of a single- more than enough for a goblin's stature. Placing it down gently, he moved to help her with the latches and straps as she directed.

She grunted, slipping her arms out of the clam shell and dropping it unceremoniously to the floor beside her feet. Then she made to struggle out of her cotton undercoat.

Harry undid the straps holding her greaves in place and slipped them off, happy to have something constructive to do. Even if it was very unexpected.

After he helped Lizzie out of her mail skirt, breeches and shirt , he realized that goblins weren't terribly big on clothing in the privacy of their own homes. Not as he knew it, anyway.

She thanked him brusquely for his help and set to prying open the crate of chocolate, naked as the day she was born save for a generous coat of shiny stuff.

She was covered from head to toe in thick swirls of gold along her torso, traceries of silver along her limbs, and what he strongly suspected was a sprinkle of crushed diamond. Outmoded concepts of human modesty were obviously not high on her list of considerations.

Harry thought it was refreshing, in a strange sort of what world-have-I-woken-up-in way.

When she looked at him as if he was an idiot and insisted he remove his clothes as well, though, he started to worry.

Seeing his hesitance, she told him to stop being a 'baby Grak'.

Onto the pile they went.


	10. Chapter 10

"No. I don' wan' ter know where goblins wear glitter. I don' wan' ter know why they wear their glitter. An' I don' wan' ter know 'ow yeh got covered in it." Hagrid snuffled. "I don' think I'll ever get tha' image ou' of my head."

The cellar of the Leaky Cauldron was well enough insulated from the public room that the revelry over Harry's return to the British wizarding world that had begun the previous night wasn't loud enough to make them flinch whenever someone fell off a chair. Out of shared necessity, conversation was conducted at a pained, hoarse whisper.

"Hagrid, that's not how it was." Harry desperately hoped the hangover cure he'd begged off Tom would kick in soon. He'd felt perfectly fine, he really had. Now he had another set of bruises for his trouble and Hagrid kept looking at him like he'd shot the man's dog.

Hagrid shook his head mournfully and confided an unkind observation in a biscuit.

"Really, come on. Liz, that is, miss Rockchewer, is a very nice girl and she taught me all about the goblin rebellions, that's all." It sounded pathetic even to him, but it wasn't as if he'd done anything wrong. "And we had some chocolate in her room and we talked and I fell asleep, okay?"

"Whatever yeh say, 'Arry."

Harry glared at him. "She's actually quite pretty, I'll have you know."

Hagrid paled further. "They're goin' ter kill me."

"How about you drink a bottle of bloody mint Firewhiskey with a dash of lemon and see what you get up to, then," Harry offered irritably.

With an air of lofty superiority that could be held only by a man who had not been fished out of the bed of a senior accountant goblin's youngest daughter in the wee hours of the morning, Hagrid made his position clear, "I'm no' tha' thick, 'Arry."

"No, you're not," Harry muttered. "When are we heading to Hogwhatsit?"

"'Ogwarts, 'Arry," Hagrid corrected. "Tonigh', prob'ly. We'll portkey from 'ere to the grounds."

Harry gave him a long look. "I swear, if I see a single pig when we get there I'm turning right around and going home."

Hagrid sipped his coffee innocently.

"Oh that's it. Come clean," Harry waved a fork in Hagrid's general direction, "You're here to drag me kicking and screaming in front of his lordship if I say no to all this and try to wander off, aren't you?"

Hagrid's eyebrows raised. "If it helps, I almost never have to do that," he admitted, looking not at all apologetic.

Harry blinked in surprise before seizing upon what he'd heard. "Hah! I knew it, I have you! Your accent's fake. Nobody talks like that!"

Hagrid chuckled and returned his attention to his breakfast.

* * *

"Righ' 'Arry," Hagrid said, once breakfast was thoroughly demolished. He dug through his coat and set some items on the table in turn, "Cap, for yer 'ead. List fer shoppin', with directions. Enough money ter buy everything with plen'y ter spare. An' a bottle o' Ogden's Finest." He smirked at Harry when he put the small bottle down with a faint clink. "I noticed yeh liked it, thought yeh migh' appreciate 'avin some on 'and."

Harry pocketed the bottle and money pouch with a grateful nod. Hagrid really was good guy. Then he perused the list.

It was extensive, but seemed straight forward enough. Hagrid's penmanship was admirable, and he'd written what he'd need to buy from each store. Harry grinned when he saw that Hagrid had underlined 'Fortescue's – Ice Cream. Have lunch here, you'll regret it if you don't!' and drawn a little star beside it.

"Thanks, Hagrid. I appreciate this," he said, and donned the cap. It was a size too large, but this way it covered his scar without forcing him to pull it down at a ridiculous angle.

Hagrid dropped his accent again with some effort, "It'd be harder on you with me drawing eyes from all over. The Alley's a nice enough place to shop. Just keep your hat on and slouch a bit, you'll be fine. Just toddle back in 'ere around sundown."

"Gotcha," Harry said, nodding. "You said we're using a . . . Thingy. What was it . . . A key?"

"Portkey, teleportation. You'll see."

Harry was almost up the staircase to the ground floor when he heard Hagrid call, "An 'ave Tom open up the entrance for yeh! Gotta be a wand!"

"Will do!" he replied.

* * *

Harry climbed out into Tom's kitchen and found a reason to stand very still. The kitchen was still operating autonomously, it was now producing rather a large number of pancakes, but a window set into a wall that had no right to one was alarming him. He hadn't noticed it earlier because he'd been facing the wrong way.

Through it, he could plainly see a sandy ocean beach. Upon this beach lay the largest, ugliest, toothiest, featheriest abomination of a walrus and cockatoo cross he had ever seen.

It appeared that, were he so inclined, he could break the window pane and reach out to pet it.

Harry edged closer, and then peered around the wall.

No beach. Just more kitchen.

He leaned back and looked through the window.

Still with the horrible toothy feather monster.

"How do you like it?" Tom asked as he walked in, prompting Harry to make an attempt at jumping out of his skin, "Latest thing from the Americas! They call it Looky Backy Glass. Bloody stupid name, but I'm trying it out in here before I put it in the common areas."

Harry tapped it gingerly, but the critter didn't seem to notice. "It's . . . Interesting. How do they make it?"

"Something about harvesting a focus and melting it down with sand and a grain of time. Very rough and tumble magic."

"Huh. Cool."

"So what can I do for you today, sir?" Tom prompted respectfully.

Harry turned his back on the window with some effort. "I need to get into the Alley, but I don't have a wand with me." he explained.

"Ah, and Hagrid would draw a bit too much attention. Gotcha in one, lad. Er, mister Po- sir," Tom fumbled a bit on the words as he led the way.

"You really don't need to address me formally, Tom."

"I appreciate the thought, sir, but just think if someone were to overhear? You're not the type to be chumming around with bar keeps, if you don't mind me saying so."

Harry smiled lopsidedly. "Maybe I should be."

Tom flushed. "I thank you for the thought, sir. Just through here . . ." He kicked open a service door and they walked over to the bit of wall Harry was familiar with.

There wasn't a hint of the men who'd accosted him the previous evening. They'd even found their shoes. Or someone else had. Harry decided not to mention it.

"A tap and a tap and a tap. There we are."

The wall opened promptly, and Harry stepped through, tipping his cap to Tom in passing.

"You have a good day now, sir."

"You as well, Tom."

* * *

Harry stopped in front of what was supposedly a reputable book store. The building actually looked moldy, and the door was propped open by a stack of dog eared paperbacks. He walked in, frowning when he saw an animated picture of his younger self astride a pony wave at him from a poster.

He grabbed a basket, pulled out his list, and began browsing the length of the store section by section.

The posters were entirely too enamored of Harry for his comfort. Whenever he walked past one his doppelganger would drop whatever it was doing and rush into the foreground to wave at him and mouth an excited greeting.

It was so far beyond creepy that his vocabulary failed him. He was torn between 'fantastically disturbing' and 'darkly amusing, like seeing a beloved family member cast themselves off a cliff wearing naught but a bib and a tea cozy.'

He wasn't certain that second idea made much sense, but the thought made the sight of himself fawning over himself at least tolerable. He considered telling one off to see how it responded. Perhaps later.

A title that wasn't on the list caught his eye. Gosh, the Magical Kama Sutra? This he had to have. Into the basket it went.

It was a marvelous basket. It automatically shrunk every book placed inside it and printed a little list of its contents on the side. When Harry saw this in operation for the first time, he resolved to keep his hands well out of the thing.

Thankfully, the cashier was used to his customers being unwilling to touch the interior of the magic baskets, and unloaded it without complaint.

Making his way around a crowd of young children marveling over some sort of magic toy —Gah! An actual flying broom? Really?— Harry entertained the notion that perhaps he had a twin brother. He hoped not. He really wasn't sibling material. But then, even if he did have a twin brother, it was entirely possible that the past tense was very much in effect. Otherwise they wouldn't need him, would they?

It'll all be explained at the castle, said Hagrid. Thank you so much, Hagrid. Very helpful of you, Hagrid. Have another beer, Hagrid. Is there anything else you can tell me, Hagrid?

Fat lot of good that did. Harry still didn't know who this handsome fellow was or why exactly anyone wanted the real him all of a sudden when they'd been doing so well without. Although he had gathered that the bloke may have fallen ill recently, or at least didn't want to go out to shake babies and kiss old ladies anymore. It was all a bit sinister, really. Sinister but interesting, and that was enough for him to play along.

He grinned when he came upon the store he'd been looking for. Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor looked inviting enough.

* * *

"Dagon will rise again!" shrieked a disheveled preacher wearing a tattered, mud stained robe. He was facing off against a tired looking auror, clutching a ratty tome to his chest. Someone had etched a crude symbol that looked very much like a bunny in the leather of the front cover.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure. Now could you please . . ."

"Never!" the preacher snapped. "You'll never take his servant!"

The auror watched in dismay as the preacher shoved the book down his trousers and started to clamber up a drain pipe hanging off the corner of a nondescript building. "Oh for the love of god," he sighed.

Predictably, the man didn't make it very far. "Aiiieeeee!" He came crashing down with a metal bracket in his hands and hit the cobbles with a thump and a clatter.

The auror pressed a fist between his eyes, looking put on. "And that's why we don't climb drain pipes, mister," he said, looking down at the stunned man. "Now are you going to push off or am I going to have to take you down to the station?" he asked reasonably, before taking out his wand and repairing the drain with a wave of his hand.

"The Lord of Flies will take you! His children spit on you!" the man gasped, glaring up at him.

"You're a right creepy fellow, you know that? Stupify."

The auror cast a levitation charm on one of his legs and walked off with the preacher dangling in the air behind him with his robe hanging over his head.

"And the Lord of Flies is Beelzebub, you bloody moron."

Passing the ice cream shop on his way out of the alley he noticed an oddly familiar young man wearing a cabbie hat, who was looking up from his sundae at the disturbance with a worried expression on his face. He waved cheerfully. "'Lo, just cleaning up the streets a tad."

"Thanks for that, sir," the man replied haltingly.

* * *

Harry decided to write the sight of a constable dragging the limp body of a homeless man behind him as an ice cream induced hallucination and enjoyed another bite.

"Quack." a duck said cheerfully, waddling past with a train of rubber duckies in tow.

Harry saluted it with his spoon.


	11. Chapter 11

Kingsley Shacklebot looked up from a report on illegal Tarot Card exports when a foot constable clomped into his office, opening the door so fast the glass rattled in the frame.

"Hey boss! Got another crazy demon worshiper for you."

"Where'd you put him?" Kingsley asked.

"Eh? He's right behi . . ." the constable turned around, momentarily confused. Then he peeked out through the doorway. The preacher's head was rhythmically banging against the wall beside it, leaving an oily mark on the paint.

"Right here, sir," he said.

"Just throw him in the cell with the rest, then. Which type was he, do you know?"

"Confused. He doesn't seem to have read his book yet."

"Oh good," Kingsley said with satisfaction. "Do us all a favor and burn it, would you?"

"Will do, sir."

"Drop him in the drunk tank instead and write him up for being a public nuisance. We can keep him on for a while."

"On it!" The constable walked out and whistled happily, directing his charge through the halls with the occasional thump.

To Kingsley's annoyance, his office door was left ajar, and so he was treated to the banter drifting from the work room.

"Hey, what's this about a kerfuffle at the bank?"

"Someone got in bed with the wrong goblin's daughter."

"Fuck me."

"That's about the jist of it, I hear!"

"Who was the lucky sod?"

"Haven't got the foggiest. We're treating it as an internal goblin affair until someone turns up dead."

"Fair enough."

Kingsley just sighed and magicked the door closed. He couldn't very well yell at them for gossiping about work.

* * *

"Hullo?" Harry let the door he'd found hidden behind a sign advertising something anatomically unlikely about camels jangle shut behind him. "Are you open, by any chance?" Moving hesitantly, he trod on something that squeaked and shot off behind a curtain, where it hissed at him.

Harry stood on one leg and examined the sizzling pit burnt into the rubber sole of his boot thoughtfully. New footwear was in order. He'd stop by a cobbler next, and he'd be sure ask about squeaky thing resistant rubber while he was at it.

"Mister Ollivander?" he asked again, placing several bags of his purchases by the door. Most of the bulky items were shrunk and lightened at his request, including a trunk he would fiddle with later, but he'd been advised that shrinking clothing could be problematic for students; so silks, fine wool and quality cottons took up most of the load. He was not going to dress like a pauper if he could help it.

The wand store was a dingy place. All shelves and little boxes and aisles that actually narrowed as they went on. The display window let a few stray beams of sunlight in to highlight the floor here and there, but that did little good. The wall by the door was studded with cheap looking brass plaques and featured a moving picture of an old man in a dress performing an inspired impression of Maralin Monroe over an air vent.

Harry was having Doubts. His Doubts in turn were having baskets of kittens for lunch and gleefully informed him that they were delicious. He peeked over the register in case Ollivander was simply very short, and possibly deaf. What he found was a wiry, white haired man sprawled beside a three legged stool clutching a baby blue blanket with yellow ducks on.

It was already past noon, this didn't bode well. Harry sighed and looked through the window longingly before trying to wake the man. "Mister Ollivander?"

". . . Mister Ollivander?" No Joy. It was time for drastic measures! Or not, Harry considered, noticing a little silver ringer on the counter top.

Ring!

"Snrk."

Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring!

"Warbleharble!" cried the man, and he slammed his head into the counter in surprise. "Owww."

Harry pressed the ringer inquiringly.

Ring?

"Yes, yes, I'm up, good customer. I'm up," Ollivander said, rising and dusting off his robes.

"Long night, sir?" Harry asked, smiling.

"Never long enough, I'm afraid. Never quite long enough," Ollivander said, shaking his head. He looked at Harry quizzically and asked, "You haven't got a wand, have you?"

"Nope, that's what I'm here for."

"You're aware that it's illegal for a wizard to own two wands, yes?" Ollivander pressed.

"Not a problem. Cross my heart. I've never even, er, I don't have one at all, not even at home." said Harry.

"Well then! Welcome to the community, young sir. It's about time."

Harry's smile turned a little sickly at that comment, but he rallied swiftly. "So, how do we do this?"

* * *

"Ahah! Here we are, young sir," Ollivander exclaimed, bustling out from his shelves looking pleased, "Just the thing. Ox tail and fire split oak!" He proffered the wand eagerly, and Harry feared that he could see that special gleam in the wand peddler's eyes normally found only in men who collect stamps at knife point. "A good match, I'm certain."

Harry's opinion on this whole magic business, and not least the legitimacy of the currency in his pocket, continued to dive and showed no interest in surfacing for air.

It was a fine looking wand, he supposed. Brown, rod shaped, possessed of qualities that wands might be expected to have, yes. It was obviously made of wood, and one end had even been carved into a knurled grip. It looked impressive in an anemic sort of not nearly as dangerous as a cricket bat way. It was also neither pink nor an umbrella, which counted against it in Harry's eyes.

"Interesting," Harry managed. Dragging his gaze from the wand, he looked at Ollivander doubtfully. The man was starting to look keen.

He accepted it gingerly. "It's . . . Very solid?" he said. And how much like a stick it was! Maybe trainee wizards were expected to poke people with them and the umbrellas with invisible outboard motors were handed out to members of invitation only clubs. He'd ask Hagrid about that when he had the opportunity.

Ollivander spoke up, "Well? Give it a wave, then!" He waggled his own hand by way of example.

Harry obliged him, and he was briefly aware of a curious tingling sensation in his palm before it bucked and shrieked like a damned soul. He held it tightly, frozen in horror, but even as Ollivander moved to snatch the wand from his grasp it gurgled fitfully and fell silent. A liquid that looked like ink dripped down Harry's hand to the floor. There was a distinct aroma of burnt pork.

"Um. Sorry," Harry whispered, feeling like he'd just done something horrible. Numbly, he handed it back to Ollivander and watched in awkward silence while the man cooed over the wand like a mother examining her child for scrapes.

Patting the wand soothingly, Ollivander regained most of his prior aplomb, "That was unexpected. But not to worry, young sir! I'll have you a wand if it's the last thing I do."

He said this with such finality that Harry wondered if perhaps he really would have been better off going to the scuzzy looking shop down in Knockturn with all the candles. But then, the man did have a yellow duckie blanket, that was worth something.

How much was it worth, anyway? That bore thinking on.

"Now, how do you feel about giraffes?" asked Ollivander, crouching to examine a row of boxes placed low on a nearby shelf.

Harry startled and looked down at the man, blinking dumbly. He'd been wrestling with some duck based arithmetic in his head. He was trying to determine how many pictures of a duck would equal one duck based on the commonly accepted notion that a picture was worth a thousand words. It was all very complicated and Harry didn't think he understood it properly, but he . . . He was getting distracted again. "Sorry, what did you say?"

Ollivander spoke to Harry over his shoulder, "Giraffes, young sir. How do you feel about them?"

Harry blinked at him again and cocked his head to one side. "Ah, I suppose I'm a bit leery of the things," he said slowly. "I've never heard of anyone being kicked by one, but I imagine that's down to a lack of survivors. No first hand accounts and all-"

"Not giraffe horn, then," Ollivander cut in, standing and swooping past Harry to stare intently at a pile of boxes on a cushion. These boxes looked in no way different from any of the other boxes, as they were for the most part brownish, whitish, blackish or some other colorful-ish without anything in the way of adornment.

"I'm surprised, giraffe horns and ox tails don't sound terribly magical," Harry said, wondering how the man kept track of his stock if he placed them willy nilly without any visible identification. Perhaps that was why he was looking at them so intently. Was he trying to remember which was which?

"Oh, everything has a little bit of magic, deep down," Ollivander lectured, pulling out a wand and waving it. "And you were spot on about giraffes, I might add. They're some of the few creatures capable of killing nundu." Seeing Harry's blank look, he continued, "Those are a sort of poisonous, furless skunk who don't have to spray. Their poison is heavier than air and only fatal upon inhalation, so they tend to get trampled or eaten by anything that doesn't have to breathe or stands taller than a Double Decker Bus."

Harry considered with some trepidation that he wasn't aware that there existed many creatures of that height. The not breathing bit was alarming too. "We don't have any of those here, do we?" he asked faintly.

"Nothing that won't leave you alive, usually," Ollivander answered airily. "I dare say you're not fond of the African savannah in general, are you?" Harry shook his head. "Not at all? Pity." He replaced the wand regretfully. "I just got a shipment in."

"I don't have anything against honey badgers?" Harry offered.

"Honey badger, hmm?" Ollivander hummed to himself for a few moments before snatching a lacquered box out of the bottom of the pile, somehow leaving the rest undisturbed. "Now what are you doing over here?" he asked it accusingly. "Silly thing."

"What's this?" Harry asked, walking over to get a better look.

"Peacock feather and wormwood, very poetic," said Ollivander, taking the wand out and weighing it in his hands as he strolled down an aisle. Harry caught the glint of gold inlay before it passed out of sight. "Utterly useless for nearly any conceivable practical purpose. Just the thing for putting out someone's eye, though," he added, grinning viciously over his shoulder.

"I . . . Don't think I want that one."

"Hm? Goodness, not to worry, your eyes are quite safe with me. But, yes!" He tapped his fingers down a row, following some sort of internal filing system. "Here it is, just the thing." Ollivander grinned at the dubious look on Harry's face. "There are a great many things in my shop, young sir."

"Are there?" said Harry, smiling wanly.

"And this," Ollivander continued, brandishing the wand under Harry's chin with a flourish, "is just one of them."

The wand made a sound like a cat in heat singing a duet with a leaf blower.

Staring cross eyed down his nose and standing absolutely still, Harry voiced his concern, "Um. Is it supposed to hiss at me like that?"

"I assure you that it is only being friendly. Reaction by mere proximity is a rare feat, you should be proud!" Ollivander said, waggling it at him, "Badger whiskers and pine. Here, give it a wave."

Harry backed up a long step. "No, no, I'm quite certain that it doesn't like me, thank you," he said, holding his hands out from his chest.

"Are you afraid of a wand, young sir?" Ollivander asked, playfully jabbing the wand at Harry's feet. It shot out an orange spark and yowled.

"Yes!" Harry squeaked manfully.


	12. Chapter 12

Harry examined Ollivander's latest offering with deep misgivings. Unlike some of its predecessors, this one looked entirely harmless. It was yellowish, and sat nestled on a bed of what might have been cream colored silk in a white box. Thus far it had failed to react to his proximity in any way, but Harry suspected that it was merely laying in wait for a chance to remove his nose.

"You first," Harry offered, peering at the man over his glasses. "If it doesn't snap at you, we might have a keeper."

Ollivander looked offended by that. "My wands do not bite," he insisted.

Harry had reason to disagree, and so he did, pointing at a tightly wrapped bundle in a corner of the room, "That one does," he said flatly.

"A morphic reaction, just a-"

"It has teeth." Harry was certain of that.

"I assure you that this wand is quite-"

Harry continued in monotone, "Sharp teeth. It ate the box." And nearly his fingers as well.

"-it couldn't possibly-"

"It also ate part of your shoe." Harry felt that was the crux of the issue. Anything that displayed an aptitude for chewing through shoe leather was not going near his pockets.

Ollivander tucked his foot out of sight behind the counter without missing a beat, "And I would be happy to take five galleons off your purchase!"

Harry cocked his head and looked at the wand with renewed interest. Money was an excellent motivator, even if he still wasn't certain how many sodas a galleon worked out to. Judging by shininess alone, five of them could amount to quite a few.

Taking care that it wasn't in the process of growing eyes, fangs, tentacles or displaying any aggressive behavior unbecoming of an expensive magic widget, Harry worked up his courage and poked it with a piece of rolled up parchment. He'd been using it place of his finger since the third wand turned itself inside out and disappeared with part of his shirt sleeve. The parchment was now considerably shorter than it had been when he'd first rolled it up.

This wand simply rocked gently, obeying all applicable laws of physics to the letter. The cream colored probably not silk failed to combust, and the box didn't melt.

Certain that whatever it was planning was likely to cost him a limb but unwilling to pass on a deal, Harry gingerly plucked the wand from its berth between thumb and forefinger, keeping the rest of his body as far from danger as he could. He fully expected it to squeal and embed itself in the ceiling with the rest of the jumpers at any moment, it had the look. After a minute or so Harry started to feel silly. At his sheepish grin Ollivander let out a sigh of profound relief and stepped gingerly over a rattling box to his register.

His exposed toes squelched on the carpet. They both looked down.

What looked and smelled suspiciously like blood appeared to be welling out of the floor boards, thoroughly soaking everything it came in contact with. The drapes at the window were wicking it up nicely in particular.

Ollivander lifted the hem of his robe in one hand and twirled around, stamping his feet in the muck. "I've seen a lot of interesting reactions, but this is remarkable. Very high level conjuration. Well done, young sir! Quite the party trick if you could manage it at will. Would you like to keep this one?"

"I don't think I like you anymore," Harry said flatly, dropping the wand back into the box and closing it firmly. "Not at all." He placed it atop the growing pile of rejections by the register.

By the time he was well away from the wand, the blood stopped just short of rising over the soles of his boots. To Harry's disappointment it didn't go away, except perhaps out the door, where it was likely making one hell of a puddle on the street. A glance at his bags left him relieved, they were blood proof, apparently. He wasn't a squeamish sort, but the coppery tang in the air was awful on the nose.

A duck fell out of nowhere and landed messily in one of the aisles, where it gleefully splashed everything it could reach. Harry glared at it. The shop was looking shabby enough without further interference. He'd count himself lucky if he managed to get out the door without paying damages.

"Oh, buck up, lad, we've barely scratched the surface," Ollivander said. He removed his own wand from his robe pocket and quickly vanished most of the mess, this to the immense displeasure of the duck, who quacked at him angrily and shot out through the door, leaving fresh prints as it went. Harry imagined those would confuse Ollivander to no end when he noticed them.

"Shall I leave you to it and come back sometime next week, then?" Harry offered, thinking of following the duck's example.

Ollivander appeared to give this suggestion some thought, but he shook his head. "I think, young sir, that I may have done us both a disservice," he said, pulling the lacquered box he'd picked up earlier out of his robe. "Do you recall what I said about this wand?"

Harry gave it a once over. "Peacock and wormwood, largely useless?" he said after a moment.

"For most practical, mundane purposes, only. A wizard using such a wand would do well to remember that. I told a half truth about its materials, however," said Ollivander. He turned the wand end over end, showing off the thin lines and flecks of gold that ran along its pale, gray length, Harry thought it was very pretty. "This wand contains the feather of a particular kind of peacock. A phoenix, actually."

Noting the emphasis, Harry looked at him quizzically.

"Imagine what could happen to a harmless household cleaning charm cast through the essence of eternal self destructive narcissism," Ollivander explained. "Tricky business, that."

"Oh goody," said Harry. He wasn't sure he liked this idea at all.

"The wood is perhaps what will make matters most difficult for you," Ollivander continued. "Worm eaten holly brings with it all manner of interesting implications. It will perform magnificently, I assure you, but a magical focus can be a very fickle thing, mister Potter. Be careful of it." He held the wand out expectantly.

Harry froze, feeling his right eye begin to twitch. "You . . . Aren't going to holler out the door that I'm in here, are you?" he asked weakly. He really didn't want to face the masses at the moment.

"Don't be silly. And don't worry, I'm one of the very few people aware of your circumstances." Ollivander said, smiling. "Here, take your wand. I expect we'll see something worth our time. It is yours."

The wand felt pleasantly cool to the touch, and Harry gave it an experimental twirl between his fingers. He smiled widely at the sight of the two faintly glowing contrails the ends of the wand left in the air. It felt nicely balanced, and it didn't have a hugely carved handle to catch on his fingers. For that matter, it didn't appear to have a definite front or back at all.

"Green? At this point it's no surprise." Ollivander murmured, rooting through a cabinet under the register counter.

Harry hardly noticed, giving his wand another twirl. He rather liked the thought of having a magic stick that wouldn't try to bite him or spit up ink every time he picked it up. The mechanics of that sort of relationship alarmed him, and he wished the child who ended up with the worst of the lot he'd handled good fortune and a fat settlement in court.

Ollivander popped into view, looking dusty but pleased and holding a small bag with a package inside it. "Fifteen galleons after discount, please. And for your trouble, a wand servicing kit with my compliments."

Harry handed the money over gladly. "Is it going to stop glowing eventually?" he asked, wondering if it would double as a night light. The contrails seemed to intensify while he looked at them, as if the store had suddenly gotten darker. After a moment he realized that it had.

Ollivander glanced out the window, opening his mouth to reply. After a few seconds he closed his mouth and set the bag on the counter. Then he walked over to the door, opened it, and looked to the sky. "Perhaps, mister Potter," he said pensively, "You should be asking whether the sun will come back."

* * *

A bored constable looked up from a pile of letters on his desk. "Another noise complaint for Ollivander's," he said.

"Bugger that. Toss it in the fireplace, would you?" his partner replied.

He crumpled it up and threw it in, watching it crinkle and burn. "Are we allowed to do that?" he asked after a moment.

"When it comes to the wand shop, yes. We'd be levying him with fines daily if we actually accepted any of these." The man chuckled, then added, "You know storage room C? Ten years back we cleaned out all the files we had on him. We emptied out the entire room."

"You'd think they'd figure out how to put up silencing wards if they're so concerned," he muttered.

Unpleasant noises sounded from the direction of the basement cells.

"Dagon shall ri-" the oft repeated words were cut off swiftly, "Stupify!"

"Bloody cultists."

"-you shall never take the mas-"

"Stupify, stupify, stupify, stupify!"

"I think he's down, Jim," a gruff voice echoed.

There was an unmistakable sound of a boot hitting something soft.

"What have I told you about kicking the prisoners, Jim?"

The younger man sighed. "Not while the door's open," he recited.

"Good boy."

The door shut with a clang.

The constables looked at each other sheepishly. "Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong line of work," one admitted.

* * *

Harry strolled out of the shop to join Ollivander under the starry sky, twirling his wand. The Alley was silent. Panic hadn't set in yet. Witches, wizards and little witchlets and wizlets alike milled about in wonder and confusion. Harry squinted up at the heavens along with them and wondered what time it was. At this point he couldn't bring himself to care about a missing star, he was content with the knowledge that nothing was having a go at his face. The moon was shining, anyway. That meant the sun was somewhere nearby, if not where it was supposed to be. He didn't see what the problem was.

"Peacock feather, you said?" Harry asked absently, turning to Ollivander. His entire wand flashed into fluorescence and stayed that way when he held it by his ear and spun it a bit faster, casting them both in a sickly green pall.

"And wormwood, yes," Ollivander agreed, watching with interest as various members of the crowd started to point at them and shout.

"And . . . Why is everyone screaming and running away from us?" Diagon alley's river of humanity was swiftly parting down the middle, with screaming wizards and witches fleeing in both directions.

"It's the color," Ollivander said, gesturing to the glow of Harry's wand. "Green is not 'Go' in the magical world, so to speak."

"Go away, maybe." Harry pocketed his wand and the glow died down, but not completely. Rather than lighting up the storefront, it lit up his pants. He didn't think it was much of an improvement. They watched the herd mentality extend its control over the general population.

His eyes widened, and he pointed at someone who had caught his notice. "Bloody hell, that guy can run, can't he?" One spry old wizard had actually clambered atop a bunched up portion of the crowd and was legging it in the direction of the Knockturn alley apparition point over the heads and shoulders of his fellow shoppers, still clutching a bag. Harry wasn't the only one impressed with his quick thinking, and the evacuation rapidly turned into a running riot.

After the first errant spell dashed a sign near their location to pieces, they both chose to honor discretion and retreated into the store.

* * *

Harry and Ollivander watched in appreciative silence behind the window as multicolored flashes of light flitted across the Alley. The rear guard of one of the mobs appeared to have declared war on the other, and the spells were flying fast and furious. None of them were green, Harry noticed.

The screams had taken on an even more frantic pitch.

An enterprising man slunk out from the grocery ahead of them with a few bags of goods, apparently packed in haste after the shopkeeper departed. He jumped in fright and shrieked like a little girl when a pair of spells coming from opposite sides turned his hat into a llama and exploded one of his bags in a puff of celery. A jet of sparkling red laid him out on the cobbles moments later.

The llama hat skittered over his body into obscurity, planting a dainty hoof on his nose in passing, causing it to bleed profusely.

Ollivander sniffed disdainfully. "Poor man."

A particularly powerful blasting hex blew a trench in one of the unadorned Alley walls. The light show was dying down. Most of the two mobs weren't in sight of each other anymore.

"They're gonna blame us for this, aren't they?" Harry said, resigned.

Ollivander twisted to his right to get a better look at Madam Malkime's. The expensive dress robes on display were burning brightly. He bobbed his head from side to side, mulling it over. "Not if you dispose of your hat, put on the robes you carried in and find a way to hide your wand, no . . . And I do hope you purchased most of your wardrobe before you came here."

Harry regarded Ollivander consideringly. Partners in crime? He could live with that. Smiling, he watched the conflagration over Ollivander's shoulder. "Huh. What did she do to deserve that?"

"I was just wondering myself."

"I . . . don't suppose you have anything like a wand cover, or case?" Harry asked eventually. He thought he'd seen something that looked like it might fit the bill around the store.

"I do have an excellent selection of wand wrappings, if that would interest you," Ollivander said brightly, turning away from the window and heading into a seldom traveled corner of the store. "I'm afraid they went out of fashion some years back, but I dare say you'd start a new trend if you used one. Perhaps you'd like to purchase a selection of colors and designs to match your robes? They can make for a striking fashion statement."

"Sure, lets do that," Harry said. He walked over to his purchases and hummed to himself, rooting through one of the bags for just the right robe for the occasion. He was using his wand as a glow stick to see. "Scarlet, blue, black or bone white, do you think?"

"Scarlet, certainly. You'll look like a Christmas ornament, but we can remedy that," Ollivander advised, pushing a trolley of assorted fabric, "as I have-"

"Just the thing, yeah?" Harry interrupted, pulling his arms through the sleeves of a scarlet robe with silver trim. He was grinning.

Ollivander arched a brow at Harry. "Just so, mister Potter. Just so."

"Alright, what have we got?"

"Only the finest, as you can see," Ollivander said, wheeling the cart closer. "And one more thing."

"Hm?"

"Confundus."

Harry didn't see it coming.


	13. Chapter 13

Ollivander studied the form of the young man standing before him. Harry wasn't simply confounded, he was completely out on his feet.

"Are you there?" he asked eventually.

A crack sounded, and the bloodied brown mallard who'd exited in such a hurry earlier apparated into the room and waddled over to stand at Harry's feet. The boy stooped to pick it up and cuddled the creature against his chest.

"Yes." It was Harry's lips that moved, but it was the duck who spoke. A most curious thing.

It's beady eyes shrouded an intelligence that some would call malevolent. Ollivander thought of it more as a favored grand child.

"The body grew up to be your spitting image, you know," he said fondly.

"Did it? We lack color vision," the duck replied. Harry's lips were pulled into a mocking grin.

"How unfortunate. It's hair is black, like the father's, but the eyes are very much your own."

"We thought they were worth preserving."

"Truly?"

"Would we lie?" the duck cackled.

Ollivander smiled. "You've been missed, you know."

The duck ruffled its feathers, and Harry's body stroked its head soothingly, "Through no fault of our own. Albus mucked everything up," it hissed.

"Still, here we are. I kept the wand, as promised. Although it did suffer a little from age."

"We'll make do," it said. Bobbing its head, the duck spat up a vial that couldn't possibly have fit in its mouth into Harry's hand.

Ollivander stooped and studied it gravely. "Unicorn blood?"

"The secret ingredient is love," the thing said proudly, contorting Harry's face into a look of triumph. "You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to kill a unicorn when you have a beak shaped for straining water," it continued.

"Now I know you're having me on," he chuckled.

"Oh, fine," Harry's body waved his comment away, "don't believe me. I just stole it from an apothecary down on Knockturn."

"I expected nothing less."

"Bottom's up!" it said, and Harry downed the vial's contents in a single gulp.

"Won't that . . ."

It made Harry mime turning a key in the side of his head. "Just think of it as a wind up doll."

"I still have my reservations about this, Lily."

"Don't worry so much," the duck hissed flatly. "The wraps on the left will do, I think. The silver one was James' favorite."

"Of course."

Observing from atop Harry's head, the duck gestured regally, and Harry began to wrap his wand with practiced movements, obscuring the green glow. "You always do have just the thing, old man," Lily quacked softly.

* * *

Kingsley could see Harry and mister Ollivander seated at separate tables outside Fortescue's Ice Cream Shop, both sipping hot chocolate. A gaggle of constables stood around them, chatting amicably.

They were acting more in the capacity of an honor guard than anything else, but ultimately it was their job to keep the pair from running off before Kingsley could have a word with them. Happily for all involved, they were cooperating. He was grateful that he had at least two witnesses with names he could take to the bank.

Not Gringots, obviously, their doors were still tightly shut and there were reports of screams from inside. But a metaphorical bank would do.

It had been a long, long day. He'd received a call around noon that Diagon Alley was inaccessible. Then he'd received a whole lot more. That alone got a state of emergency declared right quick. All attempts to enter by hook or by crook failed miserably. These included everything from portkeys to old smuggling tunnels and even a muggle bulldozer.

Hours later, with most of wizarding Britain in an uproar already, exits, apparition points and floo all over the country started filling up with panicked witches and wizards. All of them fleeing from a pair of shadowy figures by Ollivander's who, so many of them claimed, made the sun disappear. Hysterical reports that one of the figures held aloft a shining Kedavra green wand and pointed at them before walking inside the store helped paint a pretty picture.

A few locals who'd passed Ollivander's claimed that they'd seen all manner of flashes of light through the window and heard some loud noises, but hadn't thought anything of it. They assumed Ollivander was simply having a busy day with some new students. Some claimed that just before the . . . Time skip, for lack of a better term, they saw a dark liquid running out from under the door. That last had certain truth to it, as the cobbles outside the store were sticky and black with something. That was up to the forensics team to determine.

He could imagine the headlines now: "Diagon Alley Trapped In Time! A New Dark Lord For A New Millennium?"

Oh yes. The department of Mysteries was going to have a busy quarter sorting that little trick out.

Clangalangalang!

Kingsley turned, surprised at the noise. A mediwizard was rattling a metal potion case with his wand as he paced down the alley toward the impromptu aid station. "Bring out your dead!" Clang, clang, clang! "Bring out your dead!"

"Would you shut up!" a young mediwitch shouted at him, storming over to the man.

"I'm only getting in the spirit of things," he protested weakly, backing up from her prodding forefinger.

"We have injured people here! If you've got enough time to play, you've got enough time to work!"

"Jesus, lady," the man said, exasperated. "I was just coming down from the other lane to tell the supervisor here that we've about cleared out our lot to Saint Mungoes."

Kingsley wasn't the only one smirking at the pair. He shook his head and looked away.

It had come as a pleasant surprise for the first teams to get inside the alley to find none other than The Boy Who Lived and No Listed First Name Ollivander making heroes of themselves by overseeing a volunteer fire brigade and ensuring the injured were comfortable. They'd even repaired some of the damage to the Alley. The aurors and medics were happy to take over the work for them.

Apparently Madam Malkime's had been completely overcome by flame, thanks to some Incendio happy idiot. It seemed that at least one wizard could always be counted on to make a bad situation worse by adding a little heat. While most of the stock was a loss, he imagined the woman would be pleased to see that the store was now constructed of tastefully done marble, iron and granite rather than wood and brick. Harry did good work. Although he insisted the credit was due to Ollivander, it was obvious to all who the magical powerhouse was. Evidently Harry had gotten much more adept since Kingsley had last seen an example of his casting. Permanent conjuration of that caliber was more than merely difficult. The few people capable of such a feat were heavily sought after for their talents. The boy could make a career of it, were he so inclined.

There was something very odd about Harry's involvement, as he had been informed that Harry was supposed to be resting in a secure location, ostensibly recovering from a malady his guardian, Headmaster Dumbledore, refused to publicize. Additionally, if the frightened report from the mediwitch he'd just met had any bearing on reality, Harry also did not recognize anyone in the Auror or Medical corps by sight, name or voice, and couldn't recall many important dates and events. Worse yet, his old, benign scar was now a full fledged curse scar, and appeared to have increased in size And to top it all off . . . He claimed to have been in the store with Ollivander when whatever it was all went down.

It was disheartening to learn that the boy he'd come to count as a good friend and sometime coworker likely didn't remember much, if any, of the time they'd spent together over the years. What he really wanted to know was whether the amnesia was what he'd been suffering from to begin with, or something new as a result of the events of the evening.

Ollivander, on the other hand, was just fine. His only complaint was that he was missing part of his shoe, which one of the aurors, a dab hand at small scale transfiguration, repaired for him. Nothing could phase that man.

Kingsley sighed. Questions galore. What fun.

* * *

One of the men standing next to Harry couldn't contain his amusement at the antics of the medics. "Bahaha! Look at her go. That poor sod, he's not going to hear the end of this."

"I figure she likes him," said a woman, smiling.

"You think? Really? She sounds more like she wants to tear out his liver and eat it."

"Neh," another man shrugged, his voice rough. "Stress reaction, is all. Tough love. If he ain't attached he's about to be. Tonight, I knows it."

"Oh yeah, and everyone knows you're a right Casanova, you are."

"Fuck off, Bradley," he said without looking.

"Well excuse me for breathing," said a different man, sounding offended. The one who actually made the comment snickered obnoxiously.

"Huh? Damn! Sorry man, I, uh. . ."

"Yeah, yeah," said Bradley, waving it off. "Prick," he added quietly.

"Hey! I didn't mean to-"

"Oooooh, listen to this, guys. Tough love!" crowed the woman, clapping her hands and bouncing comically.

Harry's composure shattered, and he giggled at the exchange.

"Think it's funny, do you?" groused the flustered man, "Wait til it's your turn."

"If it were me, I'd have already given him a kiss. You're missing all the signals, mister Casanova!" Harry said, grinning evilly.

Bradley clasped his hands over his knees and dug his toes into the ground, looking at them both coquettishly, "Well shucks, mister Potter. I'm flattered you noticed, but you know I've only got eyes for one man." He fluttered his eyelashes and put on a hopeful expression.

'Casanova' looked as if he were staring death in the face.

The woman slapped him on the arse, shocking him so badly that he stumbled into the waiting Bradley's arms.

"I knew you'd come around!" Bradley exclaimed, giving the man a squeeze around the waist.

He stood stock still, blushing like a ripe tomato.

"Aww, get off it, you know we only do it because we love you," said another. "Some more deeply than others."

"You're not very nice people," Harry said, still giggling.

"And you're one to talk? For shame, Harry. You might as well be an auror, you've spent so much time with us."

Harry winced. "I'm sorry that I don't remember-"

"No worries, mister Potter. We're just glad you're on the mend. We're no strangers to mind injuries. " 'Casanova' interrupted, recovering from his embarrassment. "See the stern looking fellow over there?" he asked, pointing him out.

"Yeah?"

"That's Kingsley Shacklebot, head auror. He's waiting on the forensics team to finish their preliminary at the store, and once they're done he'll come chat with you and mister Ollivander and you'll be free to go. You two've known each other for ages."

"Huh. He looks familiar . . ." Harry hedged. Of course, he'd never met the man in his life, this could be tricky.

"Yes! It's coming back to you already!"

Harry laughed, it was all he could do.

* * *

Kingsley roused himself from his thoughts as one of his men practically goose stepped out of the shop, trying to avoid stepping in the muck without success.

"Got something for me, sergeant?" Kingsley asked, taking in the man's alarmed countenance.

He stopped in front of Kingsley and spoke haltingly, "Sir, I don't know what the hell happened in there, but I can say it's a miracle mister Potter's alive right now." He took a deep, calming breath, puffing out his cheeks and letting the air out slowly before continuing, "Bloody hell, sir, there's enough magical residue in there to power the ministry for a month. And, and . . . " He trailed off, grimacing as if he was recalling something very unpleasant. "There's blood, sir. Mister Ollivander cleaned up some, that's obvious. Straightened the shelves, repaired the curtains, vanished the mess on the floor, all that. But there was enough of mister Potter sprayed around in there to pour out onto the street. It's not immediately obvious inside, but the traces are everywhere, and it was all his. There's still a pool of it under the building, and I don't have the foggiest notion how it happened." He smirked, then, and said, "Mister Ollivander will be pleased to know that his skrewt infestation has been dealt with. The tunnels flooded out."

Kingsley nodded slowly. "Well, at least we have witnesses," he said. "Thank you, sergeant."

"I am sorry, sir, but I really don't think my team can get much in the way of details, there's just too much interference." The sergeant looked pensive. "He . . . He is alright, sir? Isn't he? I, I mean we're all glad mister Ollivander is still up and about as well, of course, but the lads are-"

"He's fine, don't worry," Kingsley said soothingly. "The mediwitch says he shows signs of a recent concussion, something did hit him, hard, but he's a strong wizard. His skull didn't even crack. But she didn't say anything about blood loss. Whatever happened, I don't like it."

"Figure that's why he hasn't been making appearances lately?" the sergeant asked thoughtfully.

"Could be, could be." Kingsley tapped his fingertips against his thigh. "Pass it on that mister Potter was found on the scene alive and well, organizing a fire brigade and doing what he does best. Keep the nasty details to your written report, I don't want to cause another panic."

"Yes sir." The sergeant began to turn away, but stopped short. "Oh, sir! There was one other thing, real odd."

"Go on."

"Someone had their familiar in there after Mister Ollivander cleaned the place. A water fowl, we think. There were tracks leading through the store out to the street, point of origin was an aisle in the middle of the store, but there wasn't anything significant there that we could tell."

"Hm. I'll ask about it, thank you." Nodding at the sergeant, Kingsley took a small notebook out of his pocket and set off for his first personal interview of the night.

Waterfowl, eh?

"Ah, hello sir!" Harry greeted him cheerfully, raising his hand. "They tell me we're good friends, but I'm sorry to say we'll have to start fresh for the moment. I'm . . ." Harry trailed off for a moment, visibly searching for words. "Not quite as I should be," he finished. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"I see they've been telling stories," Kingsley said dryly, waving off a nearby corporal and pulling out a seat across from Harry. "But yes, I'm Kingsley Shacklebot, head of the Auror department. We've always gotten on well in the past. Believe me when I say that we all wish you a speedy recovery."

"If you don't mind me asking, sir, when did we first meet?" Harry asked, crinkling his forehead.

"In your third year," Kingsley lied smoothly. It would have been his fourth, actually, but Harry wasn't technically enrolled at Hogwarts at the time. Or at all, for that matter. The boy was apprenticed to Albus Dumbledore.

Harry only shook his head blankly, disappointing Kingsley, who'd been hoping for the boy to correct him or at least fake a reaction. "Sorry," Harry said, "I don't recall that at all."

"Not a problem, Harry- May I call you Harry?"

Harry snickered lightly, smiling. "By all means, I don't mind."

At least the boy was friendly, even if he didn't speak the way he once did. Kingsley pulled out a standard line from the interrogation playbook, "Would you be willing to answer a few questions for me?"

"Ask away." Harry replied in kind, still smiling.

* * *

"And a big one for you. Can you tell me why you were in the alley today, when you're reportedly still recovering from your injuries and unfit to receive visitors?"

"That's . . . A tricky question." Harry was obviously trying to be as honest as he could, it was almost painful to watch him agonize over what to say. His scar seemed to be bothering him. "I can't say I know everything, but Hagrid has been escorting me for a couple days. I stopped in to chat with Ollivander concerning . . . Magical matters relating to my situation, this afternoon. I was supposed to head over to Hogwarts in the evening."

Harry paled when Kingsley jokingly suggested that confronting dark wizards was an odd thing to do when one was so badly off that they did not recall the circumstances of their injury or their recent treatment. "Heh, well . . . I don't think anyone told her that."

Kingsley schooled his expression carefully. This was new. "There was a woman?"

"The one with the green wand. Fair skin, longish dark hair, medium build, English accent, and some serious kick to her spells," Harry said, looking irritated at the recollection.

"And can you tell me what happened in there? What she did, what you did?"

Harry frowned and rubbed his forehead. "Um, damn. That's . . . Something I can't answer properly at the moment. If I have to describe what happened in there, all I can come up with is, say . . . Loud noises, lots of green light and a whole lot of blood on the floor." He gave Kingsley a pained look. "And a duck. There was definitely a duck." Harry blinked in surprise, and his face went slack, as if he couldn't believe he'd said that. He continued hurriedly, "You'd be better off asking Ollivander, I think he was in a better state."

Kingsley carefully refrained from smiling, making a note on his pad. Up until now Harry had been trying to choose his words with great care, understandably, considering his condition, but there were still all sorts of holes in his story that would require patching. It was refreshing to hear an unguarded sentence come out of his mouth. "A duck, you said?"

Harry leaned back in his chair and worked his tongue against his cheek, looking away. "It quacked," he said eventually, glancing at Kingsley, obviously fearing ridicule.

"I see." Kingsley said, watching Harry expectantly. He did not, in fact, 'see' at all, but he hoped he would shortly.

"Sorry, I don't usually mention the ducks, duck." Harry winced, appearing to be extremely uncomfortable. "Bleh. It feels awkward talking about them, but this time it left tracks, I'm not crazy!"

This seemed like a sore point for Harry. "It's alright," Kingsley assured him, "you're not. We noticed the tracks too, I was going to bring it up, actually."

"Hah! Vindication!" Harry pumped a fist in joking victory and relaxed in his seat.

"You've seen ducks before?"

"They drop in now and then, quack a bit, and leave. It's always very strange. I don't remember them not showing up at least once a day. Nobody else ever notices them," Harry said frankly, now that he wasn't picking through obviously jumbled memories.

Kingsley rested his elbows on the table and looked at Harry intently. A possible Dark Lady with a shining green wand who may be employing a magical duck, or several ducks, as a means of keeping tabs on Harry? And had done so for as long as he could remember? This was bad in a remarkably strange way. He could understand why the boy would not have mentioned this before.

Point: Harry's memory was severely impaired. Just how far back could he remember?

"Harry," Kingsley asked carefully, hoping not to offend him, "when you say that you don't recall them not showing up, do you mean since your illness, or before then?"

Harry snorted. "My earliest memory is of a duck looking me square in the eye when I was very little. They've been around all my life."

Kingsley bit off an oath before it could leave his tongue. This was very bad. Potentially very, very bad. That sort of time frame held truly disturbing implications. "Harry, is Headmaster Dumbledore aware of this?"

Harry got a glazed look on his face, as if he was trying even harder than before to come up with an answer that was absolutely true with too little information at hand. "Not to my . . . Thingy. Knowledge. That. Maybe?"

"I see." This was beginning to sound like dangerous territory. Harry didn't seem to be tracking properly anymore. He caught a waiting mediwitch's eye and nodded urgently, she readied her wand and a vial of calming draught. "Would you object to me bringing this to his attention?" he continued slowly. "As your guardian I believe he would be best suited to ensuring your safety."

Kingsley rocked back in his chair in shock as he saw Harry's earnest expression transform into a vapid, airy grin.

"I don't think you want to do that, young man," a voice that didn't belong to Harry hissed.

Kingsley sat very still, pale faced. There were knives behind those eyes. "Harry?" he asked, his tone deliberately mild.

Harry was giggling.

"Harry, are you alright? Do you need the mediwitch?"

For a long, long moment, he thought he was about to die. Then he heard a very faint quack from under the table, and suddenly it was just harmless, earnest young Harry sitting there, dazed and looking terribly lost.

Kingsley stood quickly and waved the mediwitch over, advising her that Harry appeared to be in shock. Then he walked inside the ice cream parlor and leaned heavily against a wall, trying to calm his shaking hands.

This was very, very bad, alright.

He knew that voice.


End file.
